


The Lonely Hunter

by teaspice



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: A/B/O, Dubious Consent, M/M, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-18 20:21:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 32,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaspice/pseuds/teaspice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Supernatural AU. When a feral, dangerous Pack take Gotham as their territory John - a packless, lone werewolf - is convinced his days are numbered. But John is more useful than he knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There is a witch in John’s apartment.

 

He smells her before he sees her. Scent of ozone, sweet and heavy like the air gets before a storm. The reek of her magic is all over the doorstep, the locks. When he pushes open the door, hand on his holster, he can smell her even more clearly: the chemical odour of her perfume, the faint acid of her sweat. The bloodsaltbone of her flesh.

 

He knows her.

 

“Get out Selina,” he says.

 

“Put the gun away, John,” she says. She’s sitting by the window, pale legs crossed. The fading light coming in through the glass behind her carves out her silhouette, leaving her face in shadow. But John has good eyes. He can see the grim line of her mouth, the flinty tension etched into her jaw. “I’m not a threat. Not today anyway,” she amends.

 

“I still want you to get out,” he says. Feels the edge of a snarl curling at the end of his words. His fingers itch. He’s half seriously considering shooting her. That, or getting out his claws. Baring his teeth. Showing her exactly what she’s fucking with.

 

Instead he backs down.

 

His instincts are telling him to get her out of here, use force if he has to, but John learned long ago not to trust his instincts. They’re illogical, purely animal. They lack human intelligence. John’s human brain, that cool head he’s worked so hard to maintain, is telling him that no witch worth her salt would fuck with a werewolf’s territory without good reason. And Selina is nothing if not smart. She has a reason to be here, a very good reason, and John needs to know what it is before he does anything… brash.

 

He breathes in and out, deep and slow. The apartment, shabby and small as it is, is John’s territory. It smells like peace and safety and home, and even the electric scent of Selina’s magic can’t dampen the comfort John gets from being on his own turf. His heartbeat settles. He moves nearer to Selina, shoulders straight, face calm. He can see her stilettos; sharp little blades on the ends of those long, long legs. They gleam in the light.

 

He’s careful to keep out of kicking range.

 

“Why are you here?” he asks.

 

“I’ve had some interesting news,” Selina says, in a curiously flat tone. She’s looking at him carefully. Measuring. “It seems Gotham has some new guests.”

 

“Gotham always has new guests,” John replies with a shrug; wonders what Selina _isn’t_ telling him. “What is it this time? Vampires? Fae?”

 

He isn’t sure why the arrival of new -  _guests -_  should matter to him. He’s managed, over the years, to carve himself a comfortable niche in human Gotham. He doesn’t involve himself in supernatural politics. He’s learned to be unremarkable; to drift under the radar.

 

“Wolves,” Selina says flatly.

 

John looks at her. And looks at her.

 

Her words hit him like a physical blow. Hard as a knife between the ribs, a puncture to the lungs. He wants to flinch, wants to howl. Wants to transform right there in the middle of his apartment with the blinds open and a witch sitting in front of him, claw the walls down, taste blood.

 

He clamps down on his instincts. Hard.

 

“You’re wrong,” John says. His voice feels raw.

 

“Oh, I’m not wrong,” responds Selina. Something about his reaction – the terror he wasn’t quick enough to hide – has made her soften, tinged her expression with an emotion that looks horribly like pity. “I trust my sources.”

 

“How many wolves?” asks John, because there’s still hope. Maybe. If there are just two or three, he might be able to fight back, might be able to kill them first – he has a gun, and he knows how to fight –

 

“A Pack, John,” she says softly.

 

Okay, thinks John. Okay then.

 

“Wolves don’t like cities,” John murmurs, thinking of his mother, of her hungry loneliness, of the way Gotham slowly crushed the wild light out of her. “What’s a _Pack_ doing here?”

 

“I don’t know,” Selina says. Her voice is grim. “This Pack, John... they’re not _normal._ No one can tell me much, but they’re old, and they’re dangerous, and they aren’t known for their mercy. It doesn’t matter why they’re here. You need to get out. Tonight if you can.”

 

John shakes his head without thinking about it.

 

“My job,” he says, stupid with numbness, the thick anaesthesia of terror. “I have responsibilities it’s my job to protect people – ”

 

“Not people. Humans,” cuts in Selina, voice dripping with scorn. “Do they really matter to you? I’m sure the swarm can take care of itself without you.”

 

“I _like_ humans,” snaps John.

_I feel at home with them,_ thinks John. _I feel like I belong._

 

“If you’re smart, you’ll run anyway,” says Selina. That almost-pity is still in her eyes. Like she knows all the things John isn’t saying. Like she knows how afraid he is of the thought of leaving his territory, his _home_. “But if you were smart, you would have left a long time ago, wouldn’t you?”

 

Fucking witches, thinks John. They can see through anything. Put on your best front, if you want, but it makes no difference to a witch. She’ll always see those hairline fractures running through your heart and cut you open a little wider.

 

“They may not find me,” he says quietly.

 

“Oh John,” she says. Shakes her head. “They already know you’re here.”

 

She stands up. She cuts a keen, graceful figure as she makes her way towards the door. Her eyes are fixed on John the whole time. Sensible of her. His claws are out. His skin feels too small, as if he’s on the edge of an unstoppable change. But he’s in control. He is.

 

“Tonight,” she says again, stressing it, as she puts her hands on the door. “You won’t get another chance.”

 

“Why did you come here?” blurts out John, watching her.

 

She stops. Considers.

 

“You belong to Gotham,” she says, shrugging with deliberate lightness. “The other wolves don’t.”

 

She smiles at him; a terrible, too-sharp smile that reveals the strangeness inside her.

 

“Witches can be territorial too,” says Selina.

 

* * *

 

 

John is a shit werewolf.

 

Selina should never have had to warn him. He should have sensed a Pack – a whole fucking Pack – encroaching on the city. He should have known them by smell; sensed the threat of them, like knives at his back.

 

But the only werewolf John has ever known was his mother, and she died when he was just a little kid. He can barely remember the scent of other weres. He barely knows _how_ to be a wolf. He knows about territory, about the terrible pull of the moon, about hunger and blood. He knows enough to be sure no Pack will tolerate a lone wolf on its land. But apart from that, John is essentially as human as you can get when you have a monster inside you. He’s never had a Pack of his own. He’s never run through open woods or hunted for prey. He’s spent his whole life hiding his strangeness, living with humans, brushing shoulders with a supernatural underworld but never quite letting himself become a part of it.

 

At his heart, John has always felt more human than werewolf. But that doesn’t change what he _is._

 

And what John is, basically, is fucked.

 

He packs his bags in a panic. His clothes, his few tattered books, his gun, his _spare_ gun. The money he’s been keeping hidden in the left sneaker at the back of his closet. When he’s done packing he goes to the window and stares out at the city. Glittering neon, it looks decayed and ugly and on the verge of death. It doesn’t look like a place any person, human or otherwise, should want to live.

 

He stares at it for a long, long time.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s almost dawn when he leaves.

 

Too late by far, but at least the buses have started running. John could probably have taken a squad car, but he wasn’t keen to start his journey by leaving an obvious trail of outright theft. He doesn’t have a car of his own. He’s fucking poor, is the thing. He’s going to be even poorer, soon enough. No job, no apartment, nowhere to go. But at least he has his bank card and his health, right?

 

The bus is mostly empty. There’s a girl sleeping at the back, swathed from head to foot in baggy jeans and an overlarge hoody that conceals her face. Vampire, John thinks, and dismisses her. She won’t cause trouble this close to sunrise.

 

The journey is quiet for the most part. John stares out at the landscape, breathing carefully, searching for unfamiliar scents in the chaotic city air. Apart from the smell of the vampire ( _death, dust, forgetfulness_ ) there’s nothing unusual about the world around him. John doesn’t relax, exactly. But he thinks, just maybe, maybe he’ll be able to get away, to survive this –

 

Then something heavy slams into the front of the bus.

 

The driver swears loudly, sharply, and brakes hard. John rocks forward in his seat. The engine makes an ominous sputtering sound and goes dead.

 

They’ve broken down on an isolated street where the buildings are abandoned, the windows boarded up. Only a mile from here the city gets busy again, crowded, _safe_. A block back there are shops opening up for the morning rush. This may be shitty lucky, but John has a feeling this wasn’t about luck. No.

 

This was timed.

 

The driver gets out of his seat.

 

“Don’t go out,” John says impulsively, leaning forward, gripping hard at the seat in front of him.

 

The driver looks straight through him. He’s probably used to crazies, to hotheads. He isn’t going to take John seriously. “Stay in your seat, kid,” he says absently.

 

“No, fuck, you have to _listen to me_ – ”

 

But the driver’s gone. John stands up abruptly, his heart racing.

 

John doesn’t wait to see pale, overbright eyes in the dark. He doesn’t wait for the driver’s cut off scream, although he knows it’s coming. Their scent, something like earth and wilderness and ashes, is already in his lungs, in his flesh, right deep in the heart of him.

 

Wolves.

 

For a moment he’s frozen. It’s been so long, is the thing. The scent is almost – almost – like coming home. It reminds him of his mother. Of soft fur, and yellow eyes and being a child. A pup. The memory is paralysing.

 

“What are you waiting for?” asks the vampire. He turns to face her sharply. He’d forgotten she was there.

 

Her hood is still low, but he can see her narrow, reflective eyes. She’s staring straight at him. Wide awake. Not so harmless after all.

 

“ _Run_ ,” she hisses.

 

And John, hearing a bloodcurdling howl far too close for comfort, does exactly as she says.

 

He runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know, I just love werewolves. *facepalms*


	2. Chapter 2

He breaks through the passenger doors, barrelling out onto the street. Cold air hits him head on, and with it comes more of that wolf-scent, paralysing and awful and familiar all at once. But he doesn’t let it slow him down; doesn’t let his wolf react.

 

_Don’t trust instinct_ , John reminds himself. _Never trust instinct._

 

John is running for his life. One slip and he’s a dead man. He can’t afford to forget himself.

 

His senses are painfully heightened. He can hear the squeak of his shoes as he turns sharply, heading back towards more crowded streets. He can feel the bite of the wind on his skin as he runs at full throttle, feet pounding tarmac, lungs burning like he’s trying to breathe in acid instead of air. His whole body is screaming with adrenaline. Blood is roaring in his ears. And the wolves are at his back, running two-legged but as swift as animals. He can _sense_ them in a way that goes almost beyond scent. One, two, three of them chasing him down. One, moving more swiftly than the others, is almost level with him. He can hear the wolf’s breath: slow and steady, as if it’s not even trying. As if this is a _game._

 

This isn’t a fair hunt. They’re faster than him.

 

John doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting out of this alive.

 

The first wolf darts towards him, and John is forced to serve back towards a warren of boarded up buildings, away from the distant glimmer of store lights. He hears another howl: thin, wild, piercing as a blade. It makes the hairs on the back of his neck rise. It sounds triumphant.

 

The streets are dark and narrow here. Worse, they’re unfamiliar. John knows Gotham pretty damn well, but it’s a big place. In the Narrows he’d have a good chance of giving them the slip, but here? He’s lost. He feels like he’s hurtling head first into darkness. They’re purposely herding him off somewhere isolated, somewhere they can kill him quietly. He _knows_ that. But there’s nothing he can do to stop them. He’s as good as a rat in a trap. Soon they’ll force him into a dead end. Soon he’ll have nowhere left to run to.

 

John keeps running anyway. And running. He’s all burning muscles and parched lungs and panic. His heart is racing. He can barely think. Even humans turn into mindless animals when they’re running for their lives. It’s the adrenaline, see. It eats away all the unnecessary bits of being a human, and just leaves the bare bones of survival: Fight or flight. Fight for the strong. Flight for the weak.

 

Fight or flight.

 

John stops abruptly. He plants a hand against the wall. Breathes deep and hard, blinking dizzy blackness from his vision. Then he stands up straight and reaches into his jacket.

 

Fuck flight. John is nobody’s _prey._

 

Gun out. Safety off. His hands are perfectly steady as he turns to face the wolves at his back.

 

They may be on two legs, but he doesn’t make the mistake of thinking that they’re anything but animals. They slow down as they approach him, but they still have their claws out, and their eyes are gleaming and wild. They move lightly and silently, their eyes intent. They move like predators.

 

“If you come closer I’m going to shoot,” says John. “And I’ll aim for the dick. Just so you know.”

 

They stop, but they don’t look afraid. They seem amused.

 

One of them takes a small step forward. He’s wiry, dark-haired and bearded. When John aims the gun pointedly at him, the wolf stops.

 

“Unless you’ve got silver bullets, that isn’t going to do you any good,” he says.

 

“It’ll still hurt.”

 

“My brothers and I aren’t afraid of a bit of pain,” says the wolf.  His curls and uncurls one clawed hand in a not-so-subtle threat. “I don’t think you can say the same, pup.”

 

“Oh, I’m plenty afraid,” John says steadily. “ _That won’t stop me shooting you_.”

 

The wolf holds his hands out, palms open. A mocking, placating gesture. “Come now,” he says mildly. “This won’t change anything, pup. You’re on Pack territory. You know the consequences.”

 

_That was why I was trying to leave your fucking territory asshole,_ thinks John. He doesn’t bother saying it. The wolves know John was trying to slip away without unnecessary bloodshed. They tracked him down anyway, they chased him here, backed him into a corner. They killed the bus driver. They probably killed the vampire girl, too. They _want_ to kill John, and cowering and pleading isn’t going to change that.

 

“This was my territory first,” he says instead.

 

“Then laying you to rest here will be a kindness,” the wolf says, still in that same chillingly mild tone. “We will give your blood to the sewers, your bones to the earth. Your flesh to the city’s rats. Your ghost will rest easy.” The wolf takes another step closer; claws gleaming, mouth curving into a smile. “Close your eyes,” he murmurs.

 

John shoots at him.

 

The wolf moves faster than John thought was possible. Before he knows it the gun has been wrenched from his hand and the shot is going wide, smashing straight a boarded window opposite. He’s slammed backwards. Hard brick at his back – claws rake hot, bloody lines at his neck. Somehow, John ducks, slipping free from that grip, and starts running again.

 

So much for going down with a fight. So much for dignity.

 

It doesn’t take long after that. They catch him. Of course they catch him. They’re Pack, after all: stronger, faster, deadlier together than they could ever be on their own. And John is just one packless werewolf who barely even knows how to use his claws.

 

The three of them close in on him at once. One knocks him to the ground, making John’s knees hit the tarmac with bone-jarring force; the second twists John’s arms behind his back; and the third, the bearded one, wrenches John’s head back, baring his neck. Forced submission.

 

“Caught you,” he says softly. John can feel the wolf’s claws back at his neck, where his blood is already running sticky and hot. In a second, in half a blink of an eye, those claws are going to go straight through him, and then, and then –

 

John doesn’t want to die.

 

John wants to swear, spit curses out and threaten bloodshed, bravado is all he has left to fight with, and he needs to _try_ – but something about the wolf’s scent, something about the feel of his own blood at his throat, is driving his own instincts crazy, and when he opens his mouth to speak, he finds himself snarling instead. It’s a purely animal sound, not something a human throat should be capable of producing. The low rumble rises out of his chest, peels his lips back, makes his own wolf strain against the boundaries of his human flesh. He can feel his own flesh on the edge of the change. Claws threaten at his fingertips. His teeth feel crude and sharp in his mouth. His own scent sharpens – more animal than human, more wolf than man.

 

All three of the werewolves inhale sharply. One of the wolves laughs and says something in an unfamiliar language; something that sounds crude and makes John’s flesh crawl. John can see the bearded wolf’s nostrils flare again. Careful, considering.

 

At his neck, the claws fade back. There are fingers now. Callused, firm, holding him steady. A human hand.

 

“Ah pup,” the wolf says, his eyes eerily bright in the grim colourless dawn light. “I do not think your ghost will rest easy after all.”

 

He sounds regretful.

 

Then his fingers tighten.

 

It takes a second for John to realise he can’t breathe, and then he’s fighting with all his strength. He claws, he tries to bite; he tries to scream, but there’s no air in him to scream with, and the wolves are pinning him down. They’re pinning him down and he can’t breathe, his insides are on fire, if just could just _breathe -_

 

He’d beg now, if he could.

 

As he sinks into starry blackness he hears the wolf speak one last time. His words sound like they’re coming from a long way away; like John is slipping away to a place where words can’t reach him, and his lungs can’t burn, and the firm, terrible hand at his throat can’t hurt him anymore.

 

“Take him to Bane,” says the wolf.

 

John hears nothing more. 


	3. Chapter 3

As soon as John wakes up he knows where he is. It’s a realisation that hits him even before his brain kicks into gear and the pain crawls up through his neck and into a tight, blinding knot behind the closed lids of his eyes. He’s lying on damp ground. Everything aches. The sounds around him, the echoes -

 

They’ve brought him to the sewers.

 

He knows the sewers well. When he lived at St Swithin’s he didn’t exactly have a whole lot of privacy, and he’d been smart enough to know that transforming around a bunch of kids - even hardened little Gotham kids who already knew the world was strange and monstrous at the best of times - wasn’t the best idea. So on full moons when the change couldn’t be avoided he snuck out and hid himself in the sewers where he could just... let the wolf out.

 

It was during those years before he got himself into the academy, before he found his own place where he could transform in safety without worrying about kids or clergy barging in on him, that John learned the smell and the sound of the sewers. And he can hear those sounds now, sharp and clear: dank water dripping down walls; the scritch-scratch of rats; and a hollow sound, somewhere far off, like howling water or wind.

 

His hearing may be fine, but he can’t see a thing. There’s something heavy pressing against his eyes. He can’t move his arms or legs either. When he shifts his wrists back and forth, testing, he can feel rough fibre abrade his skin. His wrists are already sore, which means he’s been tied up tight for a while. He’s got no way of knowing how long he’s been down for the count or how deep down under Gotham the wolves have brought him.

 

His throat hurts. John tries not to ignore it.

 

 _It’s okay_ , he tells himself. He’ll heal fast. One of the few perks of being a werewolf. He’s probably scarred and bruised, probably has imprints of the wolf’s fingers on his skin, but they’ll be gone soon. They don’t matter. He has bigger things to worry about anyway.

 

Like why they’ve brought him here.

 

Like why he’s still alive.

 

He can remember the look in the wolf’s eyes and the unrelenting pressure of his hand perfectly. The wolf was going to kill him - John had been sure of it. But something changed. Something changed when John began to transform.

 

 _I do not think your ghost will rest easy after all_.

 

His words echo around John’s skull. John shudders, pressing his wrists harder against the rope. Maybe if he starts to change he’ll have the strength to break it. Maybe he’ll even have the strength to start running again.

 

It’s a stupid thought. He’s got no chance of escaping. There’s not even any point trying. He should be trying to conserve his energy, keeping his eyes and ears open, waiting for the right moment to strike. Instead he’s fighting against rope like he isn’t perfectly aware of how pointless his efforts really are.

 

The way John is going, it’s the hope that’s going to kill him long before the wolves do.

 

“Don’t fight,” says a voice. It’s a male voice, melodic and low, with an accent John can’t place. The words are said quietly, but they still echo off the high walls in bright, rippling echoes. “It will not help you.”

 

John freezes. Tries to turn towards the source of the voice and winces at the way the movement stretches his tender wounds.

 

So he can’t turn his head. Great.

 

“Can you speak?” the voice asks. The person is near, John realises, and he’s not going to be alone with John long. John can hear heavy footsteps approaching. When John is silent, the voice becomes harder, more urgent. “Speak, if you can. If you want to live then you must do this: _Speak_.”

 

John is silent for one moment. Another.

 

“I can speak,” he says finally. His voice is thin and wavering and scrapes over his raw throat like a rusty blade. He wanted to say something defiant, something _better,_ but he’s dizzy and in pain. He’s not got much energy for useless anger.

 

Besides, there’s something familiar in that voice. Something John can’t ignore.

 

Fear.

 

“I see,” the voice says. Softer now, but no less urgent. “Then I must advise you. If you want to _keep_ your tongue, you will not speak when you meet him. You will not fight. You will show your neck and you will not meet his eyes. You will submit. This way you will perhaps postpone death. Do you understand?”

 

“Why would you help me?” John shoots back. It hurts, oh it hurts so much to speak, like he’s swallowing mouthfuls of ground glass, but he has to ask. “What’s in this for you?”

 

“I advise you for the sake of my brother,” says the voice. “Because he says you must live. For his sake, I tell you how to live. That is all.

 

“But what can I do,” continues the voice. Calmer now, as the approaching footsteps finally come to a stop. “Every creature has the right to choose death. You will do as you will.”

 

Hands grasp him beneath one arm. Another set of hands grasp him beneath the other. John catches the scent of them, the voice and his new companion. Both wolf, not that John’s surprised. He’s among Pack now. There won’t be any humans here.

 

They lift him up. With his legs bound, John can’t stand, so they settle on dragging him. He groans involuntarily. The strain on his arms is painful, and the jostling to his neck is almost unbearable.

 

“I can walk,” John rasps. _Please let me walk._

 

“Remember,” the voice says. “ _Silence._ ”

 

* * *

 

Unable to see, unable to walk, John is dragged through formless darkness. His feet move through cold water for some of the time, then over hard ground, then through water again. John doesn’t know how big subterranean Gotham is, but if this little jaunt through the sewers is anything to go by, its humongous. Even if he managed to get away now, John would struggle to find his way back out.

 

And he’d thought he _knew_ the sewers. Well. The more you learn, and all that.

 

The two men keep dragging him forward roughly, but John is suddenly aware of a change. Where there was previously nothing but echoing, liquid silence, there’s suddenly noise: voices, speaking in a multitude of unfamiliar languages. Laughter. Shouting. He’s been brought to an open space, somewhere that the Pack clearly gathers. There are wolves everywhere, absolutely everywhere. Their presence makes his skin prickle, panic threatening to overwhelm him.

 

He’s so, so fucked.

 

As he’s dragged further and further forward, the noise begins to die down to a murmur. John hears shuffling footsteps, as if the wolves are making room for - someone? For John? He doesn’t know. He can’t tell.

 

If only he could _see._

 

The two wolves holding him come to a stop. Then they drop him. John’s knees are already pretty badly roughed up from earlier, and a fall onto cold cement doesn’t help them any. He bites back a curse and tries to focus on not smacking face first into the floor. Tied up like he is, he can’t quite kneel properly. Can’t quite balance. He presses his bound hands to the floor and manages an awkward crouch. He’s shivering from adrenaline, and he knows all the wolves around him can see it. There’s no way for him to hide how scared he is, how confused and hurt and _small_. He must look pathetic to them. Hell, he feels pretty pathetic.

 

Then John hears a voice he could really, really have gone without hearing ever again. It’s the voice of the wolf. The one who strangled him and stared at him with heated, pitying eyes. It’s a voice that still claws at the back of his skull, still echoes in his head. _I do not think your ghost will -_

 

“...realised when it showed its true face,” the wolf is saying. His tone is deferential. “We planned to cull it, but once we recognised its nature we chose to spare its life. It is our gift to you. It is young and weak, but it might - serve.”

 

The hush around John is almost absolute now. The loudest sound he can hear is the hammering of his own heart.

 

Then.

 

Footsteps.

 

The silence from the wolves is so deep and terrified and adoring that John knows, _knows,_ that the man approaching him now is the Alpha. He can sense it in the steady, imposing confidence of those heavy booted footsteps. He can practically feel it in the air. It weighs him down. It makes him want to snarl.

 

Instead John stays very still. The Alpha is going to hurt him. Probably. Almost certainly. But John was told to stay silent, told not to fight, and that advice may be absolute bullshit but it’s all John has to go on. So he braces himself. Waits for the pain.

 

Instead of the violence he expects, he gets the touch of a thumb against his bottom lip.

 

Not cruel, but not gentle either. Just skin. Just the slight catch of a nail.

 

It’s... he’ll never be able to explain it if anyone asks. If anyone ever has the chance to asks. If he doesn’t die down here. But the simple touch of the Alpha’s skin against his mouth sucks the breath right out of him. He feels dizzy and hollow and weightless. He barely keeps his balance. He wants to lean forward, wants to take that thumb into his mouth. He wants to press his face against the Alpha’s hand and just breathe in the scent of his skin. But more than that he just wants to crouch here with the Alpha’s thumb to his skin and be still and passive and quiet. He wants to be _good._

 

 _What the fuck is wrong with me,_ John thinks wildly.

 

“Show me,” says the Alpha. His voice sounds strangely distorted to John’s ears, but that may just be because John has apparently gone absolutely fucking insane in the last few seconds. “Change.”

 

And John does. As much as his bonds allow. Unthinkingly, obediently, his claws lengthen from his hands. His teeth sharpen. And underneath the blindfold, his eyes go bright. Animal.

 

John feels the Alpha crouch close to him. He feels the Alpha’s other hand - a strong, unexpectedly large hand - tear the blindfold away from his face.

 

It doesn’t take John’s transformed eyes long to cut through the gloom. It’s the Alpha’s sheer size that he registers first. The Alpha is all muscle, big enough to crush John, anyone, _everyone_ , if he wants to. He sees the mask next, strapped to the Alpha’s face like some kind of _muzzle_ , what the fuck _._

 

And then John meets the Alpha’s eyes.

 

You don’t stare a wolf down. John should look away. He should. But the Alpha’s eyes have snared him.

 

Blue eyes. Pale lashes.

 

_Every creature has the right to choose death._

 

John looks into the Alpha’s eyes and sees his choices laid out before him. Death or submission. Submission or death. It’s John’s decision. No one can take it from. The Alpha is staring at him unblinking. Waiting.

 

John looks way.

 

Very carefully, so that this monstrous werewolf won’t mistake John’s actions for anything but what they are, John tilts his head to the side, then back. Even though it hurts, even though it goes against every scrap of pride John has in him, he bares his neck. Because he wants to live.

 

The Alpha rubs knuckles lightly, gently against one of the bruises on John’s neck. Back, forth. John exhales, shuddering. He doesn’t move.

 

“Omega,” says the Alpha. The word sends a ripple of muttering through the crowd of watching wolves. “You have done well, Barsad.”

 

The bearded wolf - Barsad - tilts his head in acknowledgement of the praise. He says nothing.

 

The Alpha stands.

 

“It would have been a mercy for you to kill it,” the Alpha says. His distorted voice is unreadable.

 

“I am loyal to you,” says Barsad. “First and always.”

 

The Alpha appears to be satisfied with that.

 

“Put it somewhere safe,” he says. He turns and walks away. The watching crowd parts for him; begins to disperse. “It will keep until later.”

 

Two wolves grab John again and drag him backwards. John watches the Alpha walk away; watches as he vanishes in the crowd. Then and only then he lets his eyes close and quietly, exhaustively thinks about how much he hates himself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They put John in a cell. It may look like a perfectly normal room, but its deep underground in a _secret werewolf lair_ and the door locks from the outside, so: cell.

 

Barsad is the one to unbind John’s hands and feet. He does it carefully, laying John out on the narrow bed, rubbing his limbs to get the blood flow moving. There’s no mistaking the pity in Barsad’s eyes now. But John doesn’t trust that pity will make Barsad gentle. Never trust anything that thinks killing you is a _kindness_ , that’s John’s new motto.

 

“You listened,” says Barsad quietly. John almost misses it.

 

“What?” he asks, weary.

 

“You listened to my brother’s advice,” Barsad says. “That was wise of you.” He runs a gentle hand through John’s hair. “Good pup,” he says.

 

John snarls. Barsad smiles, one flash of sharp mocking teeth, and leaves John on the bed. John struggles up onto his elbows as Barsad steps out of the room. He’s shaking. He can’t seem to stop.

 

“You gave me to the Alpha,” John says hoarsely. “You want me to live. _Why_?”

 

Barsad turns back to look at him. He shakes his head.

 

“Try and rest,” says Barsad. Then he locks the door.


	4. Chapter 4

With Barsad’s absence, the room goes dark. John doesn’t try opening the door. He doesn’t even bother to get up. He thinks about it, in a vague kind of way. He should get to know the room. See if there’s any way he might be able to pick the lock or work out just exactly where in the sewers he is. There are so many things he could try; so many ways he could struggle and strive and fail all over again.

 

He doesn’t do any of them.

 

Instead he lies back on the bed, not moving, barely blinking. His breath comes out of him in shallow gasps. He teeth chatter. He’s feverish, sweating, his eyes burning like he’s on the edge of tears. But his eyes are dry and the sewers are cold. He shouldn’t feel like this.

 

It takes John a moment to make sense of the symptoms: he’s in a state of shock. It’s a natural reaction to the kind of extreme stress he’s just gone through, but the knowledge doesn’t exactly make him feel any better.

 

It just makes him feel weak.

 

Sometimes on a particularly busy crime scene it’s left to John to comfort any traumatised civilians. He’s wrapped blankets around small, terrified kids; he’s soothed crying witnesses with nothing but the cadence of his voice and the steadiness of his gaze. John may be a rookie, but he’s still a damn good cop. He’s not a skinny little orphan kid anymore. He’s grown up strong and capable. He knows how to take care of his city, and he knows how to take care of himself. He’s not meant to be the one needing comfort. He’s not meant to be the one curled up shaking and frightened, too helpless to even lift himself up off the bed. He’s not meant to be the _victim_.

 

But he is. He’s got the bruises to prove it. And even when the bruises fade, he’ll still have the memory of Barsad’s hand on his throat, of the Alpha’s thumb pressing against his lower lip. He’ll remember the way that touch - that one small touch - made him feel. And act.

 

He’s learning so many new ways to fail himself.

 

John puts his chaotic thoughts to the side and focuses on the more important task of steadying his breathing. If he doesn’t calm down he’ll probably fall unconscious - _again -_ and he feels stupid enough without piling that particular embarrassment on top of the rest of his impressive heap of shames. He breathes, slow and deep and careful, and tries to think about good things. Puppies and rainbows and all that kind of crap.

 

John can’t think about the Pack, or its Alpha, or anything that has happened to him in the last few hours without feeling his chest go tighter. He has to think of something else - something that’ll make him calm. Something better.

 

So John thinks of his mother.

 

John doesn’t think about his mother often. He usually does his best not to. She’s been gone a long time, after all. John learned young that holding on to the past can just make the loneliness that much harder to bear. Remembering made him angry, as a kid, and anger made the wolf in him too fierce to handle. But he’s thinking about her now.

 

He’s got lots of great memories of his mom. Her crooked smile. Her big laugh. The way she couldn’t cook for shit and fed John almost exclusively on stuff that came out of cans. There’s healing in those memories. The brightness threaded through them might be enough to give him a brief moment of peace.

 

But because John hates himself, those aren’t the memories he’s clinging on to right now for support. No.

 

He’s remembering his mom in her four-legged form, grey-furred and bright-eyed, loping around the living room like a caged animal. He remembers the gentle way she handled him when they were wolves together, when John was just a little pup. The way she nudged him along with her snout; the slight pressure of her teeth on his nape when she carried him about with her.

 

He’s thinking about how fucking unfair it was of her to raise him ignorant.

 

They were the only two werewolves in Gotham, but they never talked about it. John’s mom taught him about the change, and how to keep it secret, and that was about it really. She was shit at being human - the effort basically killed her -  but she was proud of the fact that John was more boy than wolf. She never told him what it meant to be Pack. She never told him that there was something... wrong, deep inside John, just waiting to unfurl under his skin. Because there had to be something wrong with John’s nature. What other explanation was there for the way he swayed into the Alpha’s grip like he _wanted_ it?

 

 _Omega,_ the Alpha called him. And John doesn’t know, doesn’t understand -

 

\- but no. John isn’t going to think about this. He’s going to calm the fuck down, and then he’s going to figure out a way to survive. That’s the plan. He’s goddamn sticking to it.  

 

After a moment he realises he’s ripped the edge of bed sheets to shreds with his claws. There are little fibres everywhere, stuck in John’s hair and to his skin. John waves some of them away from his face, annoyed with himself.  

 

On the bright side, he doesn’t think he’s going to faint anymore.

 

* * *

 

He catches snatches of sleep. No matter how much he’d like to remain vigilant, he needs to rest if he wants to function anywhere near his normal capacity. He’s wrung his reserves dry. A few hours here and there should be enough to get him by.

 

Unfortunately the panic attack knocked the last of his energy out of him. He’s more tired than he expects, and the room is dark and semi-quiet with a bed that John can’t quite bring himself to leave. He doesn’t plan to fall into a deep sleep, but when he wakes up again his mouth is dry with thirst and it is quiet outside his cell. No noise of wolves, no footsteps. Nothing. With peace like that, John doesn’t know what could have woken him up.

 

Then he gets the scent of the Alpha.

 

John goes very still. He’s glad his eyes are still closed. He doesn’t want to face reality yet. The bed has shifted a little, since John fell asleep - the Alpha must be seated on the edge, right by John’s feet.

 

John can hear the soft hiss of air through the Alpha’s muzzle. Mask. Whatever it is. For a long time that’s all he hears, apart from the roaring of his own heart.

 

“Tell me,” says the Alpha finally. So close, so close to John. “Do you think if you play at sleep I will leave you in peace?”

 

Well. John _had_ hoped.

 

John opens his eyes. Inhales. Exhales. He keeps his body as still as he can, every muscle coiled tight with tension. He’s on his side, facing the wall. He doesn’t have to look at the Alpha. He doesn’t have to say a word. He just has to get through the next few seconds, then the next, then the next.

 

He can’t let the fear swallow him whole.

 

“The darkness does not hide you as well as you think,” the Alpha murmurs. Even distorted by the mask, his voice has a deep hypnotic quality that burrows under John’s skin and stays there. “I can hear your heartbeat. I can hear you breathe. I know you are awake. So tell me: will you turn and face your alpha, or do you choose to continue to cower like a dog?”

 

For a moment John doesn’t say anything. He may be shaking again.

 

“I thought I was meant to cower. To submit,” John says hoarsely. His voice comes out of him as thin and fragile as a thread. _Weak, John. You’re weak._

 

“You have submitted,” says the Alpha. “You bared your neck for me before my men. It is done. Now I wish to see your face. Will you show it to me?”

 

The Alpha won’t force him. He doesn’t have to.

 

They both know it.

 

Pulled by a terrible compulsion, an awful need to _please_ , John turns onto his back and looks up at the wolf. He feels that same dizzying pull when he looks into the Alpha’s eyes, but at least this time he expects it. He grips the bedding to hold himself steady and doesn’t look away. He’s being good, so very good. He hates himself for it.

 

It’s hard to make out the Alpha’s expression, but he looks focused. Intent. His eyes slowly take in John’s face, tracing its contours with such complete attentiveness that it makes John feel like he’s slowly having his soul peeled bare. It’s not a pleasant sensation.

 

“What is your name?” asks the Alpha.

 

“John,” he says.

 

“Come now.” His tone is chiding. “Your true name.”

 

“Robin John Blake,” admits John. The words tear out of him. It’s been a long time since he’s told anyone his full name of his own free will. Not that his will is exactly free, right now.

 

“Robin John Blake,” repeats Bane. His tone, so soft and thoughtful, makes John shiver. “What happened to your Pack, Robin?”

 

John shakes his head. An instant negation. “I’ve never had a Pack,” he says. _This was my territory, my Gotham. Only mine. Before you took it all away from me. “_ I grew up here. I’m... there’s no one else,” he finishes helplessly.

 

“A creature like you, raised by humans,” the Alpha murmurs. His eyes are distant. “No Pack, no protector. And yet you live.” He says it calmly, clinically. But there is a fire in his eyes. A terrible fire. “Strange.”

 

_A creature like you._

 

“What am I?” asks John quietly. When the Alpha doesn’t respond, John strives on, forcing himself to speak through the cloying sense of submission that keeps trying to quench his rage, his need for some semblance of control. “You called me omega - ”

 

His voice cuts off abruptly as one large hand closes around his right ankle. And squeezes.

 

John isn’t fragile, no matter what the Pack might think of him, but in the Alpha’s grip his ankle feels like it’s as light as bird bones. The wolf could crush him in an instant. He’s shaping bruises into John’s skin. His nails are sharp, intense points of pain. It hurts, it hurts so fucking much, and there’s nothing John can do to get away from it. He’s helpless, he realises. Totally helpless.

 

John gets hard so fast that he’s dizzy with it.

 

“This is what you are,” the Alpha says. Calm, so calm. Like he can’t see, can’t smell, John’s sudden desperate arousal. “Just as my nature strives for rule, you nature strives for... other things.”

 

His grips grows harder. John cries out, arching up like he can somehow escape from the pain of it, the wrenching pleasure.

 

With his free hand, the Alpha grips John’s chin. Tilts his head back. He’s leaning over John now, his eyes hard and fierce, his breathing an audible metallic rasp. Maybe he’s not so unaffected after all.

 

“You are mine,” he says. Firm, iron statement. There’s no doubting him.

 

_Yes._

 

John knows where this is going. The Alpha is just holding him now, but soon he’ll move than hand on John’s chin down to his throat. And that hand on John’s ankle - all he has to is shift that hand and take John’s legs and _spread_ them and - John wants it, his wolf wants it, he’ll spread his leg if his Alpha lets him, he’ll be so good -

 

“Don’t,” he says miserably. “God, don’t.”

 

The wolf goes still.

 

He doesn’t let go.

 

Perhaps he’s angry. Perhaps he’ll really hurt John this time.

 

John stares off at the corner of the room, defeated. This is what he is. If the Alpha wants to use him he’ll welcome it. He’ll probably even love the pain. But a part of him will break. The part of him that wore a uniform and carried a gun and comforted civilians - the part of him that’s pure and fierce and human - won’t be able to survive this. That’s just how it is. Some things, you can’t come back from.

 

“A week,” says the Alpha. His voice jolts John back to reality.

 

“What?” John asks, wary.

 

“One week. Then I will come for you.” The Alpha’s tone is unreadable. “You will not refuse me then. You have a purpose in the Pack. You _will_ serve.”

 

Abruptly he releases John. John is cold and bereft, still achingly hard and panting for breath. But he’s relieved too. So goddamn relieved he could just cry.

 

He watches as all of the Alpha’s furious intensity drains away to disinterest. The Alpha’s eyes slide over him. It’s like John isn’t really there anymore.

 

But as he leaves he stops in the doorway. He doesn’t turn to look back at John when he speaks.

 

“I am giving you a gift, Robin,” he says. “Use it wisely. I will not be merciful again.”

 

It sounds like a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm away this weekend, so expect a delay to updates. But I'll leave you guys with a question: any of you have strong feelings on knotting? I'm not sure whether to include it or not, so opinions are welcome.
> 
> ETA: Haha, okay, I think that's a pretty unanimous yes to knotting! Thanks for your help, guys.


	5. Chapter 5

John fully expects the Alpha to come back and finish what he started. Any second now. Any minute. He was just giving John false hope, that’s all. Soon the cell door will open and the Alpha will be standing there, muzzled and nightmarish, staring at John with those pale, intelligent eyes. He’ll tell John he was just playing with him; that John is his and he doesn’t get to say no, doesn’t get to beg like a miserable child and be rewarded for it.

 

Monsters don’t show mercy.

 

Every noise from beyond the cell makes John flinch. He’s too wired to sleep. He sits on the edge of the bed, gripping his knees with the sharp points of his claws, and vows to himself that he won’t be caught unprepared again. He’ll be ready for the Alpha next time. His instincts may make him want to roll over and show his belly, but John is more than instinct. He has to be. He’s learned to control his wolf’s anger, its territorial nature, its ingrained ferocity. He can learn to control this too.

 

His ankle is one hot, insistent ache. John tries to ignore it.

 

When the cell door finally opens it isn’t the Alpha who enters the room. Instead a dark-skinned wolf comes in, carrying a bundle in his arms. Behind him, standing in the doorway, is another member of the Pack. His eyes are intent, claws out. John doesn’t think he has the strength to even try fighting one werewolf at the moment, but the Pack are clearly taking no chances with him.

 

“We have food for you,” the dark-skinned wolf announces. He places the bundle on the bed by John’s side.

 

The wolf’s accent is unplaceable, inflected and melodic. John recognises his voice instantly. He remembers it from the darkness of the sewers, echoing and bright. _You will submit._

 

John must react to that realisation in some way - maybe his heart rate speeds up, he’s not sure - but the wolf responds like he can _feel_ what John is thinking. The wolf raises his head; sharp, sudden. He meets John’s eyes with a smile. His own eyes are solemn, his body coiled with tension, but that smile is almost - kind.

 

“You remember me,” says the wolf.

 

“Yeah,” John responds faintly, recalling the urgency of that voice, the fear in it. “Your voice is... hard to forget.”

 

The wolf nods understandingly, as if he’s heard just this kind of thing before.

 

“So you made your choice,” he says. His gaze is assessing; clinical. “You may regret it. I do not know.” The wolf shrugs. One fluid, graceful motion. “But my brothers and I, we are not ungrateful.”

 

Grateful that John has chosen not to die? It doesn’t make much sense to him, but he decides to keep his mouth shut for once. He doesn’t understand Pack. He gets that now. The rules are so different here that John can’t tell down from up, black from white. It disturbs him though: the suggestion in the wolf’s voice that death wasn’t a bad option to take. That what John has chosen - survival and submission - has the potential to be somehow _worse._

 

The wolf unrolls the bundle carefully, revealing some bread and meat, all fresh. A little container of fruit. Bottled water. Nothing much, but at least it’s fuel for John’s overworked body to burn. The smell of it makes his stomach cramp with sudden hunger, and it’s hard to stop himself snatching at the food and consuming it immediately.

 

John manages to resist. He has a more pressing matter to deal with.

 

“Where is the Alpha?” John asks bluntly. “Is he coming back for me soon?”

 

Not his most subtle questioning technique, but he’s running on fumes here. He’s been beaten and kidnapped and molested and frankly even at his best he’s hardly a master interrogator. He just needs to know how long he has. He can’t keep flinching at every noise, real or imagined. Knowledge is something he’s seriously short on, and right now he’ll take whatever he can get.

 

“He is away,” says the wolf, in a tone that doesn’t exactly invite further questions. “It will be days before he and his most trusted return.” The wolf smiles again, more guarded now. “Until then we will protect you.”

 

Days.

 

There’s no reason for John to trust the wolf. There’s no reason for him to trust that smile, or that voice, and he doesn’t. He really doesn’t. But no one can lie all the time, and this time John makes the executive decision to believe what he’s being told.

 

Maybe the Alpha’s promise to John was real. Maybe he really will have a week in this dark cell. Untouched. Almost safe.  

 

The wolf’s eyes are still on him. John nods in understanding and looks away. “Thank you,” he says.

 

He waits until the wolves have left before he grabs the food. He eats slowly, steadily, trying to quench the hunger in his gut. If he’s going to here a long time, he needs to be strong. And who knows when he’ll get fed again, anyway?

 

Nothing is certain anymore, except the fact that John is slowly, steadily running out of time.

 

* * *

 

 Time passes faster than John expects.  

 

The light in his cell is dim at best, but he starts to get used to living in darkness. Despite his earlier fears, his two babysitters turn up regularly to bring him food, and water to wash with, and take away the bucket John uses as a toilet (and that’s just _one mor_ e humiliation John could really do without, thanks). When they leave him, he sits in the dark, isolated and alone, and tries to make sense of the fucked up mess his life has become.

 

John is starting to become unsure the week’s grace offered to him by the Alpha is any real mercy. If anything it feels like a punishment. Now he has a week to dread the inevitable. In a week the Alpha is going to come back to John’s cell, and no amount of begging is going to stop him. John can’t stop remembering the press of the Alpha’s heavy hands. Warmth. Touch. Possession.

 

The hunger inside him, a hunger that has nothing to do with food or freedom, deepens.

  

Under the skin, bone deep, John’s wolf is _yearning_. John’s ankle no longer throbs, and the bruises at his throat have vanished, but sometimes he feels a phantom twinge run through him. Sense memory. It feels like desire. In weaker moments, he finds himself pressing full bodied against the door, as if he somehow push his way free and reach what he’s craving.

 

The strength of the wanting is... unnatural. It’s a tide in his blood. He doesn’t even know how to start to control it. He thinks calm thoughts; thinks of home, of territory, of the cold metal of his gun and the feel of the sun on his skin...

 

And still the fire rises.

 

_A week isn’t enough time_ , thinks John, frustrated and despairing. He’s had his whole to perfect controlling his other instincts. He’s got no hope of managing this one just yet.

 

It’s lucky the two guards are around to distract him, even if they probably don’t realise they’re doing it. They never stray far. He hears their footsteps, their voices, at all hours. It could be night, it could be day. John has no idea. But listening to them gives John something to focus on apart from his own need and fear.

 

They switch between languages fluidly, moving from ones John recognises vaguely - Spanish, French - to tongues he can’t make any sense of. But often they speak in English, and these conversations teach John his first lessons about the Pack. He learns the dark-skinned wolf is called Matthieu, and his co-babysitter is named Yann. They never talk about anything much worth knowing - just about how fucking cold it is down here, how much they miss proper sunlight - but sometimes they mention the Alpha. Just in passing.

 

They call him Bane.

 

John sits on the icy stone floor, legs crossed, and tries to remember how to rein the wolf in.

 

He’s cleverer than the wolf. His human brain is his greatest strength. All it takes is a careful application of cold, simple logic and even the strongest impulses can be boxed away. John has always used his intelligence to deal with his desire for violence. He just has to make sense of this - this _need_. He just has to dissect it. Peel it to pieces, rip out its insides, until it has no power over him anymore.

 

_Bane_ , John thinks. That word, that name, echoes through his skull. In its path, all other thoughts fall silent. There’s a great hush of wanting inside him.

 

_Bane._

 

The days pass. John isn’t ready.

 

* * *

 

Barsad kicks the door open. He’s holding a lamp that makes John’s eyes, so used to the dark, burn with pain.

 

“Get up,” Barsad says. He doesn’t touch John, but his expression is tense with impatience as he watches John get to his feet and approach the door. “Hurry. You’re needed.”

 

“Where?” John asks stupidly. He thought - after the last time -

 

“ _He_ wants you,” snaps Barsad. He bares his teeth. They’re white. Sharp. “And he’s not feeling patient, pup.”

 

There’s a dark smudge along Barsad’s jaw. Blood, maybe. Or ashes.

 

John follows. Matthieu and Yann are waiting outside the cell, and they follow along behind John as Barsad guides him along tunnels that he was dragged down only a week ago.

 

He doesn’t try to run. There are too many eyes on him now.

 

Barsad takes him to the Pack’s meeting place. John didn’t get a good look at his surroundings last time he was here. This time he’s not blindfolded, so he makes sure to take full advantage of his sight while he can.

 

It’s a huge place, high-walled and lit by torches. There’s an open pipe heaving water down to one of the sewer tunnels below. Above them are metal ramps, somehow hung expertly on sheer walls.  There are cots too, here and there, on the ground. Bags. The Pack have made this place into something like a home.

 

Wolves are milling about - some four-legged, most still in human form - and they smell like the outside. Like Gotham.

 

They’re very quiet.

 

John can understand why. Because stronger than the smell of Gotham in the air is the scent of blood. Rich and fresh, it smells like pain and fury, like tooth and claw. And John can see the Alpha, sitting on one of the cots furthest away with his back to John, a great gash of redness smeared along one shoulder.

 

Shit. _Shit._

 

“Go,” says Barsad. But John can’t move. The Alpha is prenaturally still. Rage is written in every inch of his tensed spine, his bent head, his clenched fists. His upper body is bare, a scarred wasteland. His own men are a safe distance away, staring at him with flinching, worshipful eyes. They can sense the need for death coming off him. It feels like darkness.

 

To go to him now would be suicide. John can’t submit to him. Baring his throat to a creature like that, right now? That’s as good as _asking_ to have his insides ripped out.

 

“ _Go_ ,” Barsad hisses, insistent, and John shakes his head. Shakes it once more for good measure.

 

“Fuck no,” he whispers, hoarse already with fear. “No, I can’t.”

 

“You have to.”

 

“I can’t,” John says again. “ _I can’t._ ”

 

But Barsad is right.

 

This is the place where John was made to kneel. This is where he made his choice. Deep down John knows that if he’s going to live then he’ll have to submit. No matter how afraid he is. No matter how much it feels like he’s bending over for his own execution. The Alpha wants him. If he submits, he’s got a chance of living through this -  a small one, sure, but slim chances are better than none. If he fights, then he’s a dead man. He has to kneel. He has to do it now.

 

But it’s already too late. The Alpha is turning to look at him, his face blank and terrifying. And John is still standing. John is still staring straight at him.

 

There’s nothing human in those eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

The Alpha keeps his gaze on John. His eyes gleam. The hollow hiss of his breath through the mask doesn’t sound so mechanical anymore. It sounds like the rasp of claws. Like bone on concrete. The wolf is riding high under his skin, flickering in his pale eyes, in the furious tension coiled in his shoulders. He’s more animal than human, more instinct than reason. He’s everything John is afraid of.

 

All the Alpha’s inhuman focus is honed in on John. He looks at John like he wants to see under John’s skin; like he wants to claw him open and find out just exactly what makes him _tick._ The feral viciousness in his eyes knots around John’s lungs like a tightly wound string.

 

He can’t breathe. Doesn’t dare to try. If he moves, if he even flinches, it’ll be the end of him.

 

“It shows its face at last,” the Alpha says finally.

 

It takes John a moment to realise the Alpha is talking about _him_. The Alpha’s voice is quiet; deadly quiet. But the sound carries around the hushed room regardless, and there’s no doubt that all the wolves are hanging on his every word.

 

This is a show. A display.

 

“Too afraid to approach me, but too stupid to kneel,” continues the Alpha, still staring intently at John. “Either it is a fool of an omega, or it has changed its mind. Perhaps it now desires death.”

 

He barely has the chance to suck in one panicked breath before the Alpha is on his feet, crossing the distance between them. He doesn’t move like John expects a man of his size to move: slowly, heavily, weighed down by his own strength. Instead he’s all sparse, lethal grace. No movement wasted. In seconds he’s in front of John, staring down at him with eyes that _burn_.

 

Too late, John struggles to feign submission. Tries to show his throat; lower his eyes. But before he can bare his neck the Alpha’s hand is in his hair, wrenching his head back to a painful angle. John can’t help but look at him again. John can’t read his expression; can’t even make sense of the terror and the need racing under his own skin.

 

“Unfortunately,” says the Alpha grimly, “death is no longer an acceptable option.”

 

John feels a sudden, brutal blow against his cheek - the back of the Alpha’s hand, knocking the air right out of him. His head snaps sharply to the side. Only the Alpha’s grip on his scalp keeps him steady. Dizzy, pained, John gives a shocked groan. He expected pain, but expecting it and _feeling_ it are very different things.

 

The Alpha hits him again. This time he lets John fall.

 

John knocks his head on the ground. He can taste blood on his tongue. The side of his face feels like a hot, blistering ache. He tries to get up immediately off the floor, pressing his trembling hands to the cold ground - and feels one booted foot settle heavily on his back, keeping him pinned.

 

“Stay,” murmurs the Alpha. He sounds almost tender.

 

He keeps his foot there, pressing John down. One second. Two. Three. Then he lifts it up. Kneels down by John’s side.

 

John is breathing shallowly. Lip cut, face bruised. He doesn’t look at the Alpha’s face as the wolf grips his chin and tilts John’s head back up to the light. The Alpha’s skin against his is too-warm, a rush of fire in John’s overheated blood. His breath gets shallower. He wants to shift against the ground, restless and needing.

 

He doesn’t move.

 

The Alpha’s grip on him feels strong enough to bruise whatever remaining unmarked skin John has left. It’s a grip that could crush John’s skull in. But the Alpha has gone still and silent above John, like he’s waiting for something. Like John can stop any further pain if he just does the right thing.

 

Problem is, John doesn’t know what the _hell_ the Alpha wants. Here he is, lying bruised and humiliated in front of the entire Pack, eyes closed, near as pitiful as he’s ever been in his life and - what does the Alpha expect him to _do?_ Beg? Cry?

 

Maybe all the Alpha wants is to hurt him. Humiliate him. But if that’s all he wants, then he’s already humiliated John plenty. And as for hurt...

 

He’s bruised John. Made him bleed. But John knows how strong the Alpha is, and a blow to the face from one of the Alpha’s hands should have cracked his jaw, broken his teeth. Ripped him to fucking pieces. John is hurt, but he’s not damaged. Not in any way that won’t heal.

 

The point of this isn’t to hurt John, or even humiliate him. But John doesn’t doubt that the Alpha will break him if he doesn’t fulfill his unspoken expectations. Maybe he’ll put his boot back on John’s back. Snap him in half.

 

This moment of grace is conditional. John has to play his part.

 

_You will serve._

 

A thumb presses hard against the corner of John’s eye, where his skin is bruised deep. _Look at me,_ the touch seems to demand, so John does. He looks at his Alpha.

 

The flicker of the torchlight at the Alpha’s back make his features waver. He looks as strange and inhuman. He’s still bleeding, still oozing pure animal fury, but John has a chance to get through to him. He knows he has a chance.

 

 _I want to live,_ John thinks fiercely, staring up at him, willing the Alpha to understand through that red haze of fury. _Take whatever the hell you want. I’ll do anything. Just give me that._

 

“Please,” he whispers.

 

“Would you let me use you?” the Alpha asks, voice mild and curious. But his eyes are suddenly full of feral, terrible hunger. “Would you let me take you here, now, in front of all my men?”

 

John’s breath catches.

 

He thinks about being brave. Thinks about saying _no_.

 

He won’t. _No_ was never a real option.

 

But this time the Alpha wants John to submit with words. Last time, it was John’s wolf that bared its neck to the Alpha’s teeth. This time John can’t show his throat, can’t look away. He’s being forced to give his consent at his most human. The awfulness of it makes his heart hurt.

 

It’s not real consent. It isn’t even a choice between submission and death anymore. John can see the truth of that in the wolf’s eyes. John can choose submission or he can choose hurt, and more hurt, and more hurt on top of that. And after the agony there’ll just be the option of submission again. From here, all roads lead to hell.

 

“Yes,” says John. He doesn’t look away. “I would.”

 

“Would you enjoy it?” asks the Alpha.

 

“Yes,” says John. _You know I would._

 

John thinks he’ll do it. The Alpha is going to fuck him right here, right in front of the Pack, rut him like they’re nothing but beasts. It seems like just the kind of thing these monsters would go for.  

 

The pressure of the Alpha’s grip intensifies as he lifts John’s head higher, higher. John is forced to scramble to his knees, then rise unsteadily to his feet.

 

“Not today,” says the Alpha, and John is grateful, so stupidly grateful until he realises the Alpha is not handing back to Barsad, but leading him towards a part of the sewers John has never been taken to before. Until he realises this is still going to happen.

 

No more mercy.

 

* * *

 

 

The Alpha takes John to a dark and quiet room, cut off from the noise of the Pack. There’s a bed in the corner, sturdier than the cot John is used to sleeping on. There are chairs and a table, a generator hooked up to a snarl of wires. It’s not exactly the lap of luxury, but at least it’s nicer than John’s cell.

 

The door shuts behind them.

 

John can still smell the Alpha’s blood; feels the wolf’s eyes on him, always watching, a hunter pinning his prey.

 

The Alpha’s constant focus on him, his desire, is - disturbing. In stained clothes with blood seeping from his lip, John has probably never looked less attractive. But this thing, this _pull_ between them, clearly doesn’t leave room for worrying about shit like that. It just leaves John still and breathless as the Alpha moves his hand from John’s head to press it over his chest. Over his heart.

 

The Alpha doesn’t push John towards the bed. Instead he presses him back against a wall.

 

“Down,” he orders quietly.

 

There’s no other option. John goes down onto his knees. The wall is damp and cool against his back. The Alpha’s legs are an immovable barrier in front of him, locking him into place better than bars or chains ever could.

 

His knees ache.

 

From this angle he can see how hard the Alpha is, up close and personal. He’s revolted, _scared_. But there’s an answering arousal pooling in his gut, and if John isn’t hard yet, he will be soon. If he’s honest with himself, he’s been turned on ever since he first saw the animal fury in the Alpha’s eyes.

 

He’s fucked up. Screwed in the head.

 

“Use your mouth,” the Alpha murmurs. Still quiet, still calm. John has never given a blowjob, but he doesn’t make the mistake of trying to argue. The memory of the Alpha’s fist against his face is still fresh in John’s mind, and John knows it wouldn’t take much to bring the pain back again.

 

John takes a moment to steady himself. He leans in close, closer. He can smell the Alpha’s arousal. It makes John’s mouth water. He wants. He wants to turn his head, just so. Feel the shape of the Alpha’s cock against his cheek. He wants to mouth all that heated, hard flesh through the cloth of the Alpha’s pants. He wants to taste bare slick skin, satisfy him, be so good, so very good.

 

He wants to be a good omega.

 

The instinct is a knife to the ribs; one twist of humiliation too far. He shouldn’t want this. He can’t _be_ this.

 

John hesitates, breath a teasing brush against the outline of the Alpha’s cock. He clenches his hands into fists where they rest on his bent legs. He’ll... fuck. He’ll do what he has to do. He just needs a second to find himself again. He needs to remember who he is.

 

Not touching, not tasting the Alpha, feels like a kind of starvation. And that terrifies him.

 

The Alpha’s knuckles brush over John’s bruised cheek with surprising tenderness. The comfortpain fizzes through John’s skin, right through his skull, soothing over that blank void of need he can’t shake.

 

“Shall I help you, Robin?” the Alpha asks gently.

 

John nods mindlessly. Almost immediately he wants to take it back, wants to cling on to that precious little bit more of his free will that he’s just handed over. The Alpha’s gifts are barbed. They cut. They’re not to be trusted.

 

But it’s too late.

 

John hears the rustle of cloth as the Alpha gets himself free. Fingers press against the hinge of John’s jaw on the unbruised side of his face, prying his mouth open. The Alpha threads a hand through John’s hair; guides him forward until he can feel the tip of the Alpha’s cock pressing against his lower lip. It tastes like liquid salt, like heat. John lets out a soft, instinctual sound of hunger.

 

His cut lip is a sharp, pointed pain, aggravated every time the Alpha fucks slowly deeper into John’s mouth. The Alpha’s cock is thick, _big_ \- John can feel the strain in his jaw, the way it brings the sting of tears to his eyes - but John loves it _(hates it)_ , craves it, wants to swallow him down even though he’s too inexperienced to manage more than a tentative press of his tongue against the underside of the Alpha’s cock.

  

When the Alpha finally pushes deeper and tests his gag reflex John tries to retch, tries to flinch back, but the Alpha is holding him still - _because John asked him to help_ \- and John can’t fight the thrust of his cock, can’t control the way he moans helplessly around a mouthful of fat dick, can’t stop the slow rock of his hips as he fucks up into nothing but thin air in a motion that mimics the slow, steady cadence of the Alpha inside him.

 

His body is one whole unfocused ache of desperation, like all the need usually concentrated in his dick has spread through every inch of his flesh. He doesn’t touch his own cock, even though he wants to, even though it might soothe the fire racing through him. It’s not that he’s too proud or anything. It just feels... wrong. Like this isn’t John’s body to touch anymore. Like he’s handed over control. Instead he clenches and unclenches his hands, hot bursts of pleasure flickering through his joints, burning in his swollen lips.

 

 _Please,_ thinks John. _Please, please -_

 

He doesn’t even know what he wants to beg for.

 

The Alpha’s grip tightens. It’s all the warning John gets before the Alpha is thrusting _hard_ , once, twice, making John choke and squirm as the Alpha comes in his mouth, inside him. It’s too much for John to swallow, and he finds himself coughing, lips sticky, as the Alpha slides free from his lips and calmly tucks himself away.

 

He can taste the Alpha, all salt and musk, all _ownership_. He can feel the Alpha’s come on his mouth, like an obscene kind of brand. His own body is still thrumming with need, and his bruised face is slowly clenching up with delayed agony. He feels aroused and scared and _hateful._ He wants the Alpha to bend him over and fuck him. He wants to shoot the Alpha in the head. He wants - he doesn’t know what he wants - he wants the Alpha to _tell_ him what he wants - he -

 

The Alpha tilts John’s head back. He brushes a mark of slick away from John’s mouth. He looks at John like he can see through him to beating heart of him, where he’s all blood and has no secrets.

 

“Mine,” he says. There’s an edge of a growl to his voice. The touch at John’s lip is edged with claw. His eyes are bright. “ _My_ omega.”

 

John says nothing. He can feel the soreness of new blood trickling from his lip. His thought suddenly seem quiet and very away.

 

He presses his tongue to the finger at his mouth. Quietly licks it clean. The Alpha watches him, distorted breathing ragged and deep.

 

 _Yes,_ John thinks distantly, tasting the seed on his Alpha’s hand, feeling his own body throb.

 

Used. Resigned.

 

_Yes, I suppose I’m yours._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fucking chapter, guys. I need me some tequila.


	7. Chapter 7

It all gets hazy after that.

 

He’s not so aware anymore. He knows he still has one of the Alpha’s fingers against his tongue, knows he’s still panting quietly, desperately. Knows he’s still hard. But sight and sound come to him in brief, flaring snapshots: the dark of the wall; the curve of the Alpha’s wrist; the redness behind the lids of his own eyes.

 

John is drifting in and out of reality.

 

He thinks it might be his mind’s way of coping. The broken, splintered feeling in his chest, the certain knowledge that he doesn’t belong to himself, that he’s _owned_ \- it’s just too much for his brain to handle. All that human logic he’s so proud of can’t do him any good now. He can’t reason this out. He can’t control this biological impulse, this yearning. And worse still, he can't control the way the Alpha's careful, calculated brutality has snapped him into pieces.

 

So his brain shuts off. Lights out.

 

He won’t remember everything tomorrow. If the Alpha fucks him now, it’ll be a blur. A vague, hazy memory he’ll never really have a handle on.

 

Good.

 

His brain may be safely offline, but his body isn’t. His body is on fire. John has no energy to be ashamed as he scrapes his teeth over the salt-slick whorls of the Alpha’s fingertip, as he tries to arch up against nothing. It’s like a kind of madness, like he’s possessed. He’s so _hungry._

 

He thinks he begs.  

 

He grips the Alpha’s arms with clawed, clenching hands. He’s pleading with the Alpha - feels the Alpha trace the shape of his jaw with damp fingers as John says _things,_ things he won’t remember, things that don’t matter - and then the Alpha reaches between John’s spread thighs.

 

The Alpha presses his knuckles against John’s hardness. Oh, John’s going to remember _that_ tomorrow. Little skitter of sensation, a tease of touch. So fucking light, but it makes him want - more. Everything.

 

John can smell blood again.

 

It takes him a long moment to realise he’s got his claws in the Alpha’s arms.

 

Maybe the Alpha hits him. Maybe not. It’s possible he likes it, likes getting John under his skin. John doesn’t know. The next thing he feels clearly is the way the Alpha’s hand on him widens, fingers uncurling. Palm curved.

 

No more teasing. The Alpha grips him through his pants, callused fingers firm and ungentle, his grip a slow, torturous drag of friction and heat. John rocks his hips up to meet him, hips jerking awkwardly. He wants the Alpha’s bare skin against his bare skin - wants to ask for it - but his face hurts and he can smell someone’s blood, blooming and sweet, and he shouldn’t talk. Can’t talk. He just can’t remember _why._

 

“Robin.”

 

For a brief moment he can see, hear, with perfect clarity:

 

The hiss of the Alpha’s breath; his fierce eyes. His voice.

 

“Let me help you,” the Alpha murmurs, voice dark and tender with promise. His grip subtly tightens.

 

John’s vision goes white.

 

The Alpha lets John fuck his fist until until John is panting, until John is shaking his head, no more, no more. Mute, tears stinging at his eyes. He’s drained, oversensitive, skin flushed to fever point.

 

He feels the Alpha lift him. Feels cool sheets under him. The bed.

 

The Alpha moves to release him and John makes a protesting sound. It isn’t enough. His Alpha can’t leave him yet.

 

He needs to be filled.

 

“Hush,” orders the Alpha. His voice sounds strained.

There is sudden pressure against John’s eyes, John’s mouth. The Alpha has John’s face in his grip, his thumbs tracing John’s bruised mouth, his fingertips on John’s eyelids. John’s been stoppered. Cradled in dark and the rough heat of the Alpha’s hands. It settles him a little. Makes him feel stupidly safe.

 

“My omega,” says the Alpha. Bleak, quiet. His fingertips trace gentle shapes on John’s bruised, broken skin. “It truly would have been kinder to let you go.”

 

* * *

 

 For a while, John dreams.

 

He’s still half conscious. He can feel the ache in his jaw go deep and tender as his body churns its way through the healing process with a werwolf’s unnatural speed. But part of him is disconnected, sinking deeper and deeper into incoherent dreams.

 

He dreams of crawling through snow. Human, his bare hands going blue even though the snow is hot like fire, sticks like ashes. Streetlamps loom over him, twisted and broken, gleaming like the Alpha’s pale eyes. He’s penned in by the narrowness of the streets, by the way the buildings arch down. Reaching for him.

 

There’s a wolf ahead of him. Gray, rangy and small, with a gaze that shines like its eyes have been dipped in moonlight. The wolf is crouched low. It stares at John, piercing and intent. Its tail shifts restlessly against the ground. It will hurt him if John lets it.

 

John feels the Alpha get up and leave him. He feels it like a carving knife through the bones. He’s so hollowed out - he just _needs._ Outside the dream he shifts, restless and pained; inside it he crouches low, mirroring the wolf. He takes a deep breath - watches the wolf’s gums peel back, teeth bare, watches the shape of fury in its snarl and he - and it -

 

\- _howls._

 

* * *

 

 

"Here," a voice says. The voice is gentle, kind. After a moment John recognises it as Matthieu's.

 

The voice cuts through the fog dimming John’s mind. But John keeps his eyes closed. In the dark he can still see the imprint of footprints in snow.

 

He feels something cool press against his mouth and tries to turn his head away. His face hurts and he doesn't want to be touched anymore. He wants to lie here, eyes closed, dreaming until the throbbing pain radiating through his skin ebbs away.

 

Besides, he isn't Matthieu's omega. He doesn't have to let the wolf touch him at all.

 

But Matthieu is insistent. He makes small coaxing noises, the kind of sounds people make when they're trying to soothe a wounded animal or a child. He prods at John's mouth. John feels that coolness again. It feels smooth. Ceramic.

 

"Drink," entreats Matthieu. “It is just water.”

 

When Mattheiu tilts the cup against his mouth, John drinks. Mostly just to make him shut the fuck up. But as soon as the water passes his lips, John becomes aware of just how _thirsty_ he is. His throat is parched - his tongue is heavy, lips cracked and sore. There's a taste at the back of his mouth that he doesn't want to think about.

 

John finishes the water and Matthieu lifts the cup away.

 

“More?” he asks, and John shakes his head.

 

John opens his eyes a little. Matthieu’s expression is unreadable, but John can see the way his eyes flicker to John’s bruised cheek, his split lip. He wonders if Matthieu pities him, or if this kind of violence is just par for the course for the Pack. They probably wallow in it.

 

It doesn’t matter. John doesn’t really care.

 

John knows he should be feeling... something. Anything. But he doesn't. Under the physical pain - the grinding ache in his jaw, the bruised tenderness of his cheekbone - he feels numb. Hollow. When John looks inside himself for the fire that kept him going, kept him _fighting,_ he finds he’s out of ammo.

 

He just wants to lie here. He just wants to be left alone. He doesn't want to think about what was done to him (what he _let_ the Alpha do to him). He wants to slip away somewhere deep and quiet inside his mind, where nothing can touch him.

 

“I will bring you some food,” says Matthieu finally, filling the silence. “And some clean clothes. Then you must rest, I think.” He hesitates, still looking at John’s face. Then he stands.

 

“When do I go back?” John asks tiredly. It hurts to talk.

 

“Where?” asks Matthieu.

 

“Cell... mine,” manages John. Coughs rawly. His throat is sandpaper and glass.

 

John never thought he would want to be back in that dank, tiny makeshift room. But everything smells of the Alpha here. John isn’t going to be numb forever, and he doesn’t want to be in this room when his emotions stab back into him. He thinks it’s going to be a bit like hemorrhaging. Fucking messy.

 

Matthieu is shaking his head.

 

“He wants you at his side,” says Matthieu. “Where you now belong.”

 

Another night of this?

 

And more after that, too. Many more.

 

No, no.  John can’t. There’s no panic in the thought, no fear. Just absolute certainty. He can’t do this.

 

“Please...” he rasps.

 

“No,” says Matthieu. Final.

 

John stares at him. Matthieu has the grace to return his gaze unflinchingly. No matter what he thinks of John’s bruises, his loyalties are concrete. Absolute.

 

“It could have been a great deal worse,” murmurs Matthieu. He shrugs. “You must know that by now. You are not broken. You will heal pretty. He was kind to you, I think. In his own way.”

 

Kindness.

 

A double-edged sword.

 

John turns onto his other side, curls up tight and small, and doesn’t say another word. Not one.


	8. Chapter 8

True to his word, Matthieu brings supplies. John hears him come in but he doesn't turn around to look at him. Instead he lies facing the wall and ignores the cold prickle between his shoulder blades that tells him Matthieu's eyes are on him. He thinks Matthieu is going to speak to him, going to tell him things aren't so bad, that he should be grateful to still be in one piece - well, _fuck_ him - but then he hears the soft rustle of footsteps, the creak of the door, and Matthieu is gone.

 

After a while, when he’s sure he’s completely alone, John turns onto his other side and takes stock.

 

There is a bucket of water, a cloth. A pile of neatly folded clothes. They look like they’re probably John’s size. There's also a plate of food. John isn't hungry, and not even the promise of finally being able to put on something clean and dry is enough to drag him off the bed. His brief spurt of anger at Matthieu has drained him, and he's running on empty again.

 

He’ll get up. In just a minute.

 

But the minute stretches out. Time slips. John doesn't know how long he's been lying there when someone comes to check on him.

 

The wolves must be watching him in shifts, because Matthieu is nowhere in sight. Instead there's just Yann, pale haired and grim, hovering in the doorway.

 

Yann doesn't like John much. He never really talks to John - always leaves that to Matthieu, when it's necessary. Even now he's clearly unwilling to enter the room, gaze flat and unfriendly, his jaw a tight line. He looks like he'd rather be shovelling shit than playing babysitter.

 

Well, tough fucking luck. It's not like John asked him to be here either.

 

Yann’s voice is clipped. It has none of the music of Matthieu's voice, or the eerie strangeness of the Alpha's. He sounds... almost human, actually. Tired and resentful, husky from smokes.

 

(John doesn’t have the energy to be homesick for the human world, so he just. Isn’t.)

 

“You going to eat or wash?” Yann asks. “Or are you just going to keep lying there?”

 

He curses, low under his breath, when John doesn’t respond. “C’mon kid, get up. At least clean your cuts.”

 

John says nothing. He stares over Yann’s shoulder at the sewer tunnels behind him, which are dark. He can’t see anything move.

 

"When Bane returns he’ll be angry with you," Yann threatens, as if he thinks the thought of Bane will make John jump straight to his feet.

 

_What's new?_ thinks John blankly. He doesn’t move.

 

Yann makes another halting attempt to coax John out of the bed. Then he gives up. He paces, curses. Turns his back on John.

 

“I tried,” mutters Yann. “It’s on your head, omega.”

 

* * *

 

When the Alpha returns, he finds John unfed and unwashed, lying on his side with his eyes open. The bucket of water and the plate of food are still pointedly untouched.

 

The Alpha stands and looks at John for a long moment. He doesn’t seem angry. He still smells like blood, like violence, but he seems - calmer. The eyes he turns on John are unblinking and intent, sharp with thought.

 

He sits himself down on the edge of the bed. John has to move to accommodate him, bending his legs, curving his body around the Alpha's bulk. The Alpha presses one heavy palm against the nape of John's neck. He breathes in; a deep and rattling breath. His hand tightens, thumb tracing possessive circles against the hollow behind John’s ear. He touches John like he owns him.

 

John’s not angry. He should be.

 

He doesn’t try to fight the numbness inside him - not now. Instead he lets it wash over him, cool and calming. He can’t be strong right now. He can’t fight. He just has to lie here and survive, and survive, and then - tomorrow. Tomorrow he can be angry again.

 

"You haven't washed. You haven't eaten.” The Alpha’s mild tone has a faintly mocking edge. "Have you been pining for me, my Robin?"

 

John doesn’t answer him. It’s easier to stare through the Alpha like he’s not really there; to float just outside of his numb skin.

 

He can see faint lines on the Alpha's arms where John clawed at him, earlier. The Alpha’s shoulder wound is already healing, pink and covered in new raw skin. He takes the sight of it in.

 

The Alpha stands, releasing him. John’s neck feels cold.

 

Barely a moment later the Alpha is back, tipping John’s head gently back. John doesn’t flinch away from the feel of damp cloth against his swollen cheek. A trickle of water runs down the curve of his jaw.

 

The cloth sweeps over his eyebrows; the bridge of his nose; traces the shape of John’s mouth. John doesn’t clamp his jaw shut, doesn’t flinch away. He doesn’t lean into the touch either. He lies still and silent and good. If the Alpha wants him clean, then John will... John will let him do what he wants. It’s fine.

 

The touch stills.

 

“Ah,” the Alpha breathes. “No fighting. No hunger. Have I exhausted your spirit, Robin? So soon?” He leans in closer. Voice low.

 

“Do you believe I’ve broken you?”

 

John doesn’t flinch away, but he does close his eyes. Just for a second.

 

He knows his silence is as good as a _yes._

 

The cloth moves down to John’s neck, tracing tendon and muscle, the dip of John’s adam’s apple.

 

There’s a long silence.

 

“I have a story for you,” says the Alpha finally. His voice is soft - gentle like a subtle knife. “It is an old story, among our kind. A story told to children, to teach them about the world. It’s a story you should know.

 

“In a distant country where the sun burns bright and strong, there is a place of absolute darkness,” the Alpha begins. His voice has a deep resonance, the sing-song quality of a storyteller, a preacher. “It has many names, but among our own kind we simply called it the Pit.

 

“The humans call it hell on earth.”

 

He opens John’s shirt, thumbing open one button at a time. John feels damp cloth against his collarbone. His chest. His lungs feel suddenly tight; his skin aches.

 

“In this distant land, there was a young wolf. Foolhardy and adventurous, he strayed from his Pack and fell into human hands. The humans were afraid of him. They thought he was a demon. A monster.

 

“The humans made the Pit into a prison for the young wolf. Instead of granting him the mercy of death they gave him false justice and trapped him in darkness.  

 

“Torn from his Pack, surrounded by chains, the wolf would have been wise to end his own life. But he could see the light above him. He believed one day he would climb to freedom and be reunited with his Pack.” The Alpha’s free hand - the hand not pressing cool and damp against his stomach - cards through John’s hair; gentle, almost reverent. “But his days of imprisonment were long, and the heart of a wolf always belongs to his Pack. Alone, the wolf began to wither. His mind... decayed.”

 

The Alpha continues undressing John with slow tenderness. His voice crawls up John’s spine.

 

“When he finally escaped the Pit it was too late. His Pack was dead. And his mind, Robin - his mind was... broken. He was in the Pit too long. The darkness swallowed him.”

 

A beat of silence. The Alpha looks at John, eyes gleaming.

 

“The Pit is truly hell,” the Alpha murmurs. “For there is no fire in hell, my Robin. Just darkness and loneliness. Just you and the beast inside you.”

 

The Alpha peels down John’s pants. There’s no brush of the cloth now. Just the all encompassing weight of the Alpha’s hand on John’s thigh. His grip is bruising, sending John’s body dizzy and breathless.

 

“Do you understand the story, Robin?” he asks.

 

John shakes his head minutely, _no,_ and the Alpha is talking again in that same measured tone even as his grip tightens and tightens and his fingers twist viciously in John’s hair.

 

“Wolves know suffering. We have always known suffering. But _you_ , my Robin, my ignorant omega - you have no understanding of what it means to suffer. You think I have broken you, but you do not know what it means to be _truly_ broken.”

 

Tighter. Tighter.

 

“You have no idea what it truly feels like to be remade,” hisses the Alpha. “You’ve never looked into the darkness of your own soul and found of what stares _back_.”

 

Then: “But you will, Robin. You will.”

 

Tears stinging at his eyes, leg spasming, John remembers his fever dream: the feral moonlit gleam of the grey wolf’s eyes, the twisted streetlights. The howl breaking from his own lungs.

 

John doesn’t know why, but it’s that memory - that nightmare - that gives him the strength to come back to himself. He sucks in a deep breath and feels the fury rush back into him. Hot and fierce, cloaked in claws.

 

“ _No,_ ” he forces out.

 

The Alpha looks at him, suddenly silent. His unresponsiveness, the steadiness of his grip, only make John angrier.

 

“No, I won’t let you remake me, fucking _brainwashing -_ ” and he can’t, he can’t speak anymore. His teeth are too sharp in his mouth. His vision is a haze of red.

 

Ignorant, the Alpha called him. Ignorant of suffering.

 

The Alpha doesn’t know a thing about him.

 

John has been to dark places in his head and his heart before. The Alpha may think his little fucked up fairytale is - is _meaningful_ or something - but John has some stories of his own. Dead parents and lifelong secrets and a rage inside him that just won’t die. He’s seen _real_ darkness. He’s seen it in other people, and he’s seen it in himself, and it didn’t break him. Not even a little.

 

He won’t let the Alpha - this fucking _monster_ \- be the one to finally shatter him.

 

_I want to live,_ thinks John _. But I don’t want to live like **this**. _

 

“Let me go,” snarls John, trembling, furious.

 

The Alpha shakes his head.

 

“No,” he says, unruffled. “You are mine, Robin. I will not.”

 

“Okay then,” John says, grim. “ _Okay._ ”

 

John aims his claws for the Alpha’s throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for the slow updates except that December basically ate me. Um. Happy new year?


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra trigger warning for this chapter: some references to suicide.

John fully expects the Alpha to break his wrist. He doesn’t think about all the other things that Alpha could do to him, at least not in that first split second when his claws are arcing up towards the Alpha’s neck. He expects pain: the wet snap of his wrist, hotwhite lights behind his eyes, the Alpha’s calculated and brutal fury. He expects to pay for his anger, but he doesn’t care. Let the pain come. John is done playing the bitch. It’ll be worth it just to feel the Alpha’s blood under his fingernails, to know that he’s hurt him right back.

 

It’ll be worth it just to show himself that he isn’t completely helpless.

 

Instead he finds his hand firmly pinned back down onto the mattress. The Alpha’s weight is suddenly on him, heavy and smothering. John can feel the heat of the Alpha’s bare skin against his own, smell the tang of his blood and his sweat. A mess of warring instincts hit him hard. He wants the Alpha’s scent all over him, wants the Alpha _inside_ him. He wants to taste his skin.

 

He wants to rip that skin apart with his teeth.

 

John’s legs widen. His back arches, hips undulating. Even as he begs with his body, with the frantic thread of his pulse, he feels a snarl peel back his lips baring his teeth. He can feel his face begin to alter, elongating, bones splintering and reforming as the change rolls over him. He’s on his way to a full four-legged transformation.

 

John can count the number of times he’s gone full-wolf outside of the full moon on one hand, and most of those times were when he was a kid and couldn’t control himself. He’s tried so hard for so long to be human, and now -

 

Now the Alpha is pinning John down. Trapping him in his human skin. Because John? Is out of control. All the rage he’s never let out, always kept carefully tucked away under the skin, has come up the surface. He’s fucking volcanic. He’s straining against the Alpha’s hold, panting, fighting. He tries to break the Alpha’s grip. Tries to sink his teeth into the meat of the Alpha’s forearm and almost gives a cry of triumph when he feels tense muscle against his teeth.

 

He bites down. He tastes the salt of the Alpha’s skin; the heat of his blood. The taste of it is a pure rush of fire, a blow that makes his body spasm like a plucked string. He feels wild with it.

 

“Robin,” murmurs the Alpha. He sounds bizarrely tender.

 

The Alpha gives John a second longer to savour his minor triumph before he wrenches back John’s head. His hand grips John’s jaw. He makes John look at him.

 

“Not so broken after all, are you?” the Alpha says, eyes crinkled with amusement.

 

There’s no more viciousness in his eyes; none of the awful violence John felt when the Alpha tightened his grip on his hair and his thigh. Just humour. Just cold.

 

Under him, John goes very still.

 

He’s played John again. It’s suddenly clear to John that he’s only angry because the Alpha wants him angry, doesn’t want him passive and drained - and hell if that doesn’t just make John even _more_ furious.

 

“ _Let me up_ ,” he hisses, and it isn’t a plea. It isn’t.

 

Thank fuck John is still too mad right now to be afraid.

 

The Alpha doesn’t bother taking a moment to think about giving in to John’s request. He doesn’t have to prove that he’s the one in control - they both know he is, no doubt about it. Instead he casually releases John’s wrists. Raises his body, just a little.

 

The pressure relents enough for John to squirm his way free from under the Alpha’s frame. He leaps to his feet, half crouching, half standing. His clothes are partially pulled off, tangled around him, hampering his movement. He’s got his pants around his thighs and his shirt tangled around his forearms. He’s a ridiculous, ridiculous mess. But he has blood on his face, and an animal rising under his skin, and he hasn’t got the energy to waste on shame. He’s way fucking past it right now.

 

He’s angry, he’s tired, he’s horny - he wants to be fucked and to murder and to run and to curl up on the Alpha’s floor. He’s all splinters. Not even his skin is holding him together. He’s still not sure if he’s going to fully transform.

 

He stumbles forward - considers trying to get his claws into the Alpha’s spine, even though he knows it would be a futile effort - then hits the wall behind him hard as the Alpha rears to his feet. It’s instinct to dart away from him, which just goes to show that not all John’s instincts are suicidal after all.

 

The Alpha’s hands settle on the wall at the sides of John’s head, bracketing him in.

 

“You don’t get to touch me,” John tells him. It’s a stupid thing to say. Of course the Alpha can do whatever the hell he likes. It’s a truth John accepted long before the wolf even fucked his mouth and made John come into his fist, ruined and begging for it.

 

“You have my blood on your mouth,” the Alpha replies. His voice is low and dark, and pierces John like a needle.  

 

His gaze traces the shape of John’s mouth. Not a touch, but it feels like one: like he has phantom fingers tracing the split and bloodied swell of his lower lip.

 

“You’re mine,” the Alpha says.

 

John draws in a shuddering breath through gritted teeth.

 

“Why do you want me angry?” he demands. He curls and uncurls his hands. They itch like they’re just as hungry for hurting the Alpha as the rest of him is. “You don’t want an easy fuck, is that it? Don’t want me lying under you like dead meat?” John bares his teeth again - nothing like a smile. “Well fuck you, _Bane._ I’ll cut my own throat before I let you use me again. I’ll fucking _end_ this and you won’t - ”

 

The Alpha cuts him off with a hard, rattling blow to John’s already bruised cheek. John’s head spins. He falls silent, breath knocked out of him.

 

It was a hollow threat. But the Alpha’s voice, when he speaks, is cold and deadly and serious.

 

“I offered you death, and you chose me,” the Alpha says, hard voiced. “Death is no longer an option for you, Robin. The time for mercy has passed.”

 

Blinking through the pain in his head, it takes a minute for John to make sense of the Alpha’s words.

 

“You really think death is a mercy,” chokes out John, incredulous. _How?_

 

He remembers the Alpha’s story, like an echo shimmering around his bruised skull. _Instead of granting him the mercy of death they gave him false justice -_

 

“For a lone wolf death _is_ a mercy,” the Alpha says. “Are you truly so ignorant?” His knuckles trace the bruised shadows along John’s cheek. Tender now. “Pack is in our flesh and blood. Without it we fall into madness. We lose ourselves. Don’t you feel the truth of it inside yourself, my Robin?” His other hand fans out against John’s chest, catching his heartbeat. “Don’t you feel how hollow you are beneath your bones?”

 

John can feel it.

 

Something he’s always known was there, but never acknowledged. Like the ache of a pulled tooth, the ghost of a missing limb - something that’s been eating at him for years, quietly. Something that swallowed his mom up long, long ago.

 

But John was fine before the Pack took him. _Fine._ He’d learned to cope with the anger and loneliness. Learned to survive.

 

It’s the Pack that’s driving him mad. The Pack and the Alpha and the feel of the Alpha’s hands on his skin, the yearning that he sets off under John’s flesh.

 

John should want to get fucked. He shouldn’t want the Alpha. He shouldn’t want any of this.

 

John doesn’t feel sane. He feels splintered. Bright and broken, wolf and man. Omega and predator. Being here, being the Alpha’s, is dragging a madness out of him he didn’t even know was there. He can see all the cracks in his nature for the first time. Here, he can’t run from himself.

 

Reeling, John doesn’t have the chance to react before the Alpha is gripping him by the bare backs of his thighs, lifting him up and pressing him hard against the wall. Terror swoops through his gut, followed closely by the racing heat of arousal. He hears his pants rip as the Alpha claws through them with perfect efficiency; the sound barely registers. John hooks his legs around the Alpha’s back without even thinking about it. Twines himself close.

 

Fingers hook into his mouth. He’s very familiar with the taste of the Alpha’s skin, now. He knows the rough skin on those fingers, the grooves in the knuckles. He starts to suck at them without thinking about it, using long, hungry drags of his tongue and his lips against skin. He thinks about biting down and feels the faintest, threatening hint of claw.

 

Careful now. He’d rather keep his tongue.

 

John tries to lift one hand, tries to set his claws near something vulnerable, maybe some vital organs. The Alpha crushes him harder against the wall. Knocks the breath out of him.

 

“I’ll finish claiming you,” says the Alpha, quiet. “Then you may try and kill me, if you wish. But there will be consequences, Robin.” The grooves of his mask press against John’s bruised face. A parody of a kiss. “A lesson you’ve learned, I hope.”

 

John snarls around his fingers. The Alpha slides them deeper.

 

“Later,” he repeats. Voice like a curl of a smoke. “Let it wait until later, omega.”


	10. Chapter 10

It only takes one hand to hold John up against the wall and keep him there. The Alpha keeps the hand that isn’t occupied with fucking John’s mouth curled around his waist, thumb brushing the hollow of John’s hip, fingers fanned against his spine. There’s no sign of strain in his corded grip, in the hollow rasp of his breath. He holds John up effortlessly.   
  
Even with his legs around the Alpha’s waist and his shoulders pressed hard against the wall, John shouldn’t be this easy to pin. But he is. The Alpha’s strength is inhuman, and John has no control here. The Alpha could break him with nothing but a twist of one firm hand if he wanted to.   
  
John struggles against him anyway. He can’t let the Alpha think he wants this, or that he’s given in again, passive and shattered. His anger may be useless, may be burning through him like acid, but he can’t let it go. He tries to wrench himself free from the Alpha’s grip; tries to raise his shoulders from the wall, fighting against the pull of gravity, the bulk of the Alpha’s body.  
  
The Alpha’s grip tightens. His fingertips are hot points of pressure against John’s bare skin. For all John’s bravado, he’s helpless.  
  
He’s going to have another set of bruises tomorrow.  
  
The heat that winds through him at the thought is unwanted, humiliating, but John can’t make it go away. Some part of him _likes_ being marked. Some part of him wants to mark the Alpha back. That same part of him - that mindless, animal part of his mind that just wants John to roll over for the Alpha and show his throat - loves the fact that in the Alpha’s grip he feels fragile and used and _owned._  
  
“Calm yourself,” instructs the Alpha, and John realises he’s panting shallow and fast against the Alpha’s skin, an edge of a whine on each breath.   
  
Fingers abruptly slide in deeper between John’s lips, stoppering his breath. He should be choking, should be trying to pull his head back, but instead he feels a deep moan reverberate through his lungs. The pain of the Alpha’s grip, the sure knowledge of his own weakness, have left him burning with a terrible, degrading hunger. He’s hard, his cock a fierce and constant ache.   
  
He can’t let himself keep feeling like this. He can’t. He’s seriously considering biting down, claws or now claws, when the Alpha drags his fingers free. A shudder runs through John; he bites down on his lip instead  to stop himself letting out another one of those moans. He manages it, somehow. But the Alpha’s gaze is still cool and amused, and John is certain he knows exactly how much John wants him to slide those fingers back in.   
  
John glares at him, unblinking and furious.   
  
_I will kill you,_ he vows in his head, hoping the Alpha can read his threat in his eyes, in the flex of his clawed fingers. _I will. I’ll find a way._  
  
The Alpha laughs, quiet and hollow. As if John’s anger is fucking _funny_. Then he gives John’s waist one hard wrench, tilting John’s hips up to an angle that makes his thighs burn and his spine twinge uncomfortably. Instinctually John winds his legs tighter around the Alpha, seeking support. Only seconds later he remembers that he doesn’t want to be here, that he doesn’t want this, and he tries to squirm free. But the Alpha’s fingers on him are like bands of iron. There’s no breaking free of him. Not now.  
  
He can feel the scrape of the Alpha’s pants against the bare skin of his legs. He’s very aware of the fact that the Alpha is still mostly dressed and John is - not. He’s still got his shirt on, open and rumpled and covering absolutely nothing, but that’s it. He feels worse than naked.  
  
The Alpha moves his free hand, damp with John’s saliva, between John’s forcibly spread thighs.   
  
John freezes.   
  
“Let me go,” he demands. His voice isn’t shaking. It isn’t.  
  
“Why do you ask me for something you know I won’t give you?” asks the Alpha mildly. He traces damp spirals against the skin of John’s inner thigh; slow, careless, curious. “Do you like to be reminded of my power over you, my Robin?”  
  
Yes. No.  
  
“ _Let me go_ ,” John says again instead. His voice is a snarl, bubbling with fury.   
  
_I’ll kill you,_ he thinks again. Clings to the thought with the grim determination of a drowning man. _I fucking promise, I will, I will -_  
  
The Alpha’s hand curls around John’s cock. For one long moment John’s mind is completely blank.   
  
_Fuck._  
  
It’s a light, taunting touch. The Alpha’s thumb is pressed lightly to the head of his cock in a small, firm slide of skin, catching the slick of his precome. Making his cock drip, go embarrassingly slick.   
  
He thinks any moment now the Alpha’s grip will tighten on his cock, that he’ll fuck John roughly with the clasp of his fist, wet and filthy. And John wants him to. If he wasn’t pinned, he’d spread his legs wider. Tilt up his hips. Beg.  
  
Instead the Alpha’s fingers move lower.  
  
It’s a stab of shimmering, white sensation: hint of pressure as the Alpha traces the edges of his hole, spreading the slick he’s gathered on his fingers against John’s overheated skin. John hadn’t realised how much he needed to be touched there, but he feels it now. He’s swollen. Empty and hollow and needing.  
  
He’s never been fucked. It’s not - it just doesn’t appeal to him. Never has. But right now. Right now it’s all he wants.   
  
“Ask me to claim you instead,” the Alpha murmurs. His voice is deep and hypnotic. “Ask me for that, and I will obey.”  
  
John lets out a shuddering breath. He wants to. But -  
  
He shakes his head. Shaky.   
  
“I don’t want this,” says John, because it’s true, because he doesn’t want the Alpha to be under any illusions: this hunger in his skin hasn’t changed how he really feels. If John has his way, it never will. “Do you understand me? I don’t want you to do this.”  
  
The Alpha looks at him. Pale eyed, assessing.   
  
“I know,” he says simply. Then he presses his fingers in.  
  
Two fingers at once. No gentleness. John feels a sharp pain ratchet up his spine as the Alpha stabs his fingers in deep and rough, bending them at the knuckles, spreading them wide. John can’t hold back the pained cry that leaves his throat. He squeezes his eyes shut, shaking with it.   
  
It hurts. It feels like bliss.   
  
The ache which was centred on his dick spreads through his lower body, suffusing his skin with heat. Every movement of the Alpha’s fingers makes John harder, make his whole body flush and burn. The hunger he’s been feeling all this time, the hunger he thought was big enough to swallow him up - that was nothing. This is stronger. Unbearable.   
  
“Hush, Robin,” says the Alpha.   
  
When John opens his eyes he realises he’s been screaming. His throat hurts.  
  
The Alpha sounds distant, all his attention focused somewhere - else. But he’s looking at John’s face, as if he’s drinking any ever small flicker of John’s eyes, every instinctual flick of his tongue against his lower lip as he sucks in desperate breath after breath. He makes John feel skinned.  
  
He’s still watching John when he drags his fingers free. When he pushes three back in, then four, which is too much, fuck, _too much._  
When he finally begins to press his cock into John where John is swollen and desperate for it. His big hands span both of John’s hips, keeping his body at the pained, awkward angle that makes it easy for him to slide in achingly deep.   
  
He feels huge inside John. All pressure and too-good pain. He’s filled John up far beyond anything John thought he could take; carved a place for himself, moulded John’s body to his needs. His thrusts are brutal: slow as he pulls out, and hard as he shoves in, cramming John full, making him groan with desperation.   
  
The sound of him fucking in and out of John’s hole is obscene. Soft, liquid noises like John is wet for him, like John is a fucking _girl_. John should be embarrassed, but right now everything - even his fury - just seems to make the need in him burn brighter.  
  
Some part of him knows that the Alpha shouldn’t be able to fuck into him so smoothly, that John shouldn’t be opening up so easy and slick. But he doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to look closely at another fucked up quirk of his biology. He wants. He wants -  
  
“C’mon,” he hisses, hating himself. “C’mon, I need. I need...”  
  
But John can’t say anymore, has to stop, because he doesn’t know what he needs. _More._ But not exactly that. He arches restlessly, bites his swollen lip sore, stares into the Alpha’s eyes and waits for something like mercy.  
  
“My name, Robin,” the Alpha says, a rumbling command as he presses into John deep and slow. Agonising pleasure. “Acknowledge my claim.”  
  
John may be imagining it - may just be hallucinating, who fucking knows - but the Alpha looks like he’s trembling. Looks he’s reached the edge of his control. His eyes are gleaming. The hands on John’s hips cut.  
  
John hesitates.  
  
He doesn’t want to think of the Alpha by his name - as Bane.   
  
If he thinks of the Alpha as Bane, he has to accept that a real person is doing this to him: systematically breaking him into pieces. If the Alpha is a person then John is just your run-of-the-mill victim, just a broken boy who doesn’t know how to stop spreading his legs.  
  
“My name, Robin.”  
  
“Bane,” chokes out John. His eyes feel a little wet. Sweat and tears. “ _Bane._ ”  
  
The Alpha - _Bane_ \- gives a low, savage snarl and fucks into John brutally hard once, twice. Then abruptly he pulls out of John, leaving him agonisingly empty. John doesn’t have the words to protest. Before he can find a way to beg, to coil his legs around him tighter, the Alpha is turning, John still clasped in his arms.  
  
Bane slams him down on the bed. Distantly, John is surprised that it doesn’t break. But most of his focus is concentrated on drawing the Alpha back to him, back _inside_ him. He scrabbles at Bane’s arms. He can smell blood; metalsweet and caught under his oversharp claws where they press at the Alpha’s chest, at his neck.  
  
“Don’t fucking stop,” snarls John, helpless against himself. “Fuck you, you’ve done this to me, _don’t stop_ \- ”  
  
Bane slides back inside him like he belongs there. Like John was made for him, made to cradle his cock. He’s speaking in a language John doesn’t know, but in a tone he recognises. Tender, savage, possessive. And John is answering in plain English, swearing at him, telling him he hates him, hates him, _please don’t stop._  
  
He feels it when Bane starts to swell inside him. He doesn’t understand it, but the feel of it sends a wave of relief through him so fierce that he could cry. _This_ is what he needs. This is how they’re going to finish this. His alpha inside him, tying them together, pressing John beyond the point of pain.  
  
John comes. No touch to his cock, just the Alpha’s dick stretching him wide, _claiming_ him. He shudders, gasping against the sheets, his hands splayed wide.   
  
This should just be a physical act. Raw, ugly fucking. But John has a sense that what the Alpha has done to him goes deeper than that. That the Alpha’s claim is permanent.   
  
He turns his head. Looks up at his Alpha. He can feel the Alpha’s come inside him, marking him. He can hear the Alpha’s hollow breath, his strained and deliberate silence as he binds John to him, flesh and soul.   
  
He can see the Alpha’s face.  
  
Even through the haze in his own head, he feels a sick moment of triumph. One brief second of sharp, cruel pleasure. Because the Alpha’s eyes are open, are fixed on John like he’s just realised that John is the centre of the universe, that he’s _everything._ That there’s no going back from this.  
  
Bane looks annihilated. 


	11. Chapter 11

John breathes under Bane’s weight, lungs and heart still somehow functioning even though he feels torn apart, remade. He feels like one huge exposed nerve, oversensitive, flinching at the heat of Bane all over him, inside him. He wants the Alpha to get his dick out of him so he can curl up on his side and close his eyes and just wish all this shit _away._  
  
But Bane isn’t letting him lose focus. Bane can’t seem to stop touching him. His hands skim over John’s skin in light, fleeting touches. He follows the arch of John’s collar bone; palms the shape of his ribs, the pale skin of his torso. His touch isn’t firm or possessive, not like before. Not like John still hungers for, deep in his traitor bones.   
  
He’s almost - hesitant.  
  
He touches John likes he wants to learn the shape of his body blind, memorise the contours of his flesh with nothing the pads of his fingers, the brush of his palms. He keeps lifting his hands away; pressing them down. It’s obvious that he wants to stop. It’s just as obvious that he can’t.  
  
He’s just as fucked in the head as John is. It’s _beautiful._  
  
John wishes he could just take a moment to really bask in the pure pleasure of the Alpha’s fall from absolute power, but it’s difficult to gloat when every sweep of those fingers against his skin leaves a trail of aftershocks. It’s difficult to pretend he’s gained any control when he can still feeling the pleasurable hurt of the Alpha’s dick inside him, holding him pinned and aching and open.   
  
John shifts underneath him. The swell of Bane’s dick has lessened, but its still too big, too _much._ Moving hurts, pulls at the place they’re locked together, deep inside of him. It makes him that much more aware of the fact he’s trapped here under the heat and weight of the Alpha’s body until Bane decides to let him go.  
  
Bane’s hands abruptly pin him perfectly still. Firm but not cruel.  
  
“Patience,” he says. He runs his hands up and down over John’s skin, as if he’s soothing a feral animal. As if right now he’s the most human one of the two of them, which - no.  
  
“We’re tied together,” Bane tells him. Although his hands are gentle his voice is flat and cool, no emotion in it.  “My knot is inside you. Moving will only hurt.”  
  
“Knot?” John says blankly. “What the fuck -”  
  
He tries to move again, tries to shift free, and Bane’s hands clamp down harder.   
  
“Moving will hurt,” he reiterates.   
  
John doesn’t see why that should stop him. He’s used to pain. He hurts all over already, a badgood ache that’ll become agony as soon as his muscles start stiffening and the bruises bloom up to the surface of his skin. He’d rather get away from the Alpha now, before the hunger sets in again. Before he feels that terrible, familiar heat in his belly and starts arching into the gentleness of Bane’s hands and _wanting_.   
  
To be honest, the want is already back. Just a small kernel of heat, low in his gut. When he rocks his hips - a tiny shift of his pelvis, a little stretch of tension in his thighs - he feels the Alpha’s grip tighten. Hears his breath catch.   
  
Then John gets it.   
  
Moving won’t just hurt John - it’ll hurt Bane too.   
  
Bane is vulnerable. He’s more vulnerable right now than he’s ever been before. Tied to John, flesh to flesh, he can’t control John like he could before. He can’t be barbed and cool and clever; he can’t break John with his fists and then just walk away from him. If John is trapped, then so is Bane. John isn’t the only one covered in sweat and blood and come, feeling strange and broken. Bane is too.   
  
John takes a deep breath. Another. The air tastes cold.  
  
This may be his only chance. When is Bane ever going to be weak around him again?  
  
John can’t move as fast as he’d like to. His arms feel like dead weight and he’s got no strength left in him to waste. But the Alpha makes no move to stop him as he lifts his hand and presses the sharp points of his claws against the Alpha’s throat.   
  
“Have you claimed me enough, _Bane_?” rasps John. His throat is sore - from screaming, from gasping. “Is it time for me to kill you?”  
  
Bane gives him a narrow look. His eyes are as carefully cold and unreadable as his voice was before. John tries not to wonder what’s going on under the surface. Still waters.  
  
“Go on,” Bane says softly, neutrally. “Try.”  
  
He tilts his head back a little. The move - so much like submission, like he’s letting John take control - makes John blood boil with a need that is totally out of place in a situation where he’s planning to _murder_ him, for fucks sake. John tries not to think about how beautiful the tendons of Bane’s neck look, slick with the shine of sweat. His head is fucked. He’s fucked up. He can’t trust himself.   
  
He presses a little. Feels blood well up against his fingers, sticky and hot. It smells like home.   
  
He just has to press his hand a little closer, slide it _just so_ , and that would be the end of it. Bleed out. John steadies himself (strong, be strong) and tries to cut deeper.  
  
The Alpha doesn’t move. His hands are steady on John’s skin, his breathing deep and even.   
  
It’s John who flinches, blinking dizzy stars from his eyes.   
  
_God._  
  
He can hear the Alpha’s heartbeat. Feel it like it’s under his own ribs. It’s a weird, frightening feeling - like John is alien even under his own skin, like Bane is knitted into his _bones **.**_  
  
He was right, when he came to the conclusion that Bane had bound them deeper than skin, right down to whatever the hell makes up a person’s soul. Because this isn’t natural. This isn’t how John is meant to feel. This isn’t how anyone in their right mind would ever _want_ to feel. John shudders, drawing more blood with the reflexive clench of his fist - then pulls his fingers away.  
  
His arm flops down against the bedding, human fingers sticky with blood.   
  
There’s a long silence. He feels the Alpha shift above him. Bane’s - _knot_ \- is a little less of a fierce ache now, like it’s fading, but the movement still sends a coil of pleasurepain through John’s gut. More pain than pleasure though, and John winces at the tug, the friction.  
  
Bane traces the hollow of his ear. Tender, possessive.   
  
“I told you there would be consequences,” murmurs Bane.   
  
Bane knew this would happen. Of course he did. John turns his head away, squeezing his eyes shut. Bane responds by tracing the tendons of John’s own throat, a light painless echo of what John did to him.  
  
Slowly the feel of the Alpha’s heartbeat and the aching press of the Alpha inside him begin to decrease. John doesn’t try to move, but he feels it anyway: the easing of pressure, the slick soreness of his hole as Bane’s seed leaks out of him.  
  
When Bane tries to withdraw John’s legs curl around him in one sharp motion, trying to hold him in. Fuck his fucking instincts. He wants Bane gone, but clearly his body has other ideas.  
  
Bane groans. The sound cuts through John, leaving him feverish with sudden desire. He wants to hear that sound again. Wants Bane _begging._   
  
Bane pushes back in. John is sloppy slick, but he’s sore with it. The slide of Bane’s thick cock aggravates the soreness to a hot pain, but it feels good too. Bane’s cock makes him full, erases the weird emptiness inside him. It sends sharp bolts of pressure up his spine, making John’s dick hard as steel against his stomach.   
  
Bane leans back abruptly, breaking the grip of John’s legs. Weight on his knees, he grabs John’s thighs. He spreads John’s legs, opening him up wide and obscene. At this angle he must be able to see the way his cock is splitting John open, stretching his hole wide. John doesn’t want to think about it, but when he looks at Bane’s face he can see that the Alpha’s eyes are fixed on the place they’re joined.  
  
John feels himself flush, shamed.  
  
“Don’t,” John snaps, but the Alpha doesn’t even seem to hear him.   
  
“I am not finished claiming you, Robin,” says Bane, but he doesn’t sound triumphant. He sounds like a man possessed, like he couldn’t make himself stop if he tried. Maybe he _is_ trying.   
  
He snaps his hips, cramming John deep and brutal. John arches his hips to meet him, matching the Alpha’s rhythm. His cock is so hard it almost hurts, hurts as much as he hurts inside, but more than a hand on his dick he needs Bane to swell up inside of him like before. He needs to be stretched; needs to be stoppered up by the swollen hardness of Bane’s dick.  
  
It’s a horrible thing to want. To need like oxygen. John can’t help himself.  
  
Bane is slamming into him hard, too hard. Not long now. John tries to work up the coordination to reach between his legs, finish himself off, but he can’t manage. He just, he needs -   
  
The Alpha goes still. John is still hard, still aching, as he feels the knot open him up wider, messier, under Bane’s gaze.   
  
Bane’s eyes have that look again. Aroused, stripped down, broken. He looks more naked than John feels, and that’s saying something, considering John is the one with his ankles practically around his fucking ears.   
  
“What have you done to us?” John asks. He’s surprised by how strong his voice sounds. He doesn’t feel strong. He feels desperate. But there’s still something molten, something like hate, running under his skin. It keeps him going. “You’ve ruined both of us. _Why?_ ”  
  
Bane says nothing for a moment. John has to bite his lip to hold back a whimper as Bane lowers his legs.   
  
His knuckles brush the head of John’s cock, and John does whimper then, low and pained. One callused palm curls around John’s dick; slides over his skin, slow and firm.  
  
“Ah, my mad omega,” breathes Bane, his chest rising and falling at the speed of John’s own quiet gasps. “We were both ruined long ago.”  
  
It’s no answer at all.   


* * *

  
  
It isn’t the last time they fuck.   
  
John doesn’t lose count, exactly. It’s just that it never seems to _end._ Pain and slick, the heat of the Alpha’s dick inside him; the warmth of his hands brushing over John’s thighs, his torso, his face. John is on fire, drowning in heat. He barely has the chance to come up for air.  
  
If there’s an end to this claiming, John can’t see it.   
  
He wants it to stop, but every time Bane tries to pull away John ends up trying to claw him close, trying to keep the warmth and fullness of Bane inside him. Every time the pain gets to John and he tries to wriggle free from the Alpha’s weight he finds Bane’s hands pressing him down into the mattress as he tells John to hold still, to be patient, just a little longer and then Bane will let him rest, he promises.   
  
He doesn’t let John rest for a long time - or John doesn’t let _him_ rest, it’s not clear anymore, not at all - but eventually exhaustion wins out. John falls asleep on stained sheets, Bane’s hands still tracing loose circles on the hot, abraded skin of his thighs.   
  
When he wakes up Bane is gone, and Barsad is standing at his bedside.   
  
“Hello, pup,” he says softly. He smiles, revealing an edge of teeth. “We need to have a talk, you and I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I'm seriously just overwhelmed by how many lovely comments you've all left. I am sorry I haven't responded to them all yet, but I just want you all to know how happy every single comment and kudos has made me. Thank you SO MUCH.


	12. Chapter 12

There’s a sheet concealing most of his skin - Bane must have covered him with it while he was unconscious, and isn’t _that_ a strange thought? - but John dislodges it when he jolts up into a seated position. He only manages to keep it in place by grabbing for it with one hand, clutching it tight to his chest. He must look stupid - flushed, panicked, staring up at Barsad with wide eyes. But at least he’s not buck naked. That’s a plus.   
  
He shouldn’t have moved so fast. His whole body is one screaming ache, muscles strained, bruises pulsing fierce and hot. Sitting up in general was a monumentally awful idea, considering the brutal use his body has just gone through. He has to grit his teeth to stop himself groaning. He struggles to get his breathing under control as he shifts his weight, trying to find a position that puts less pressure on his ass because, well - it fucking _hurts_.    
  
Barsad watches him struggle for composure. He doesn’t look at the bruises that must be all over John’s bare arms, his neck, his face. His gaze is mild. But there’s still a smile on his mouth, still an edge of sharp teeth glinting behind the curve of his lips.   
  
“Are you done?” he asks.  
  
“Just about,” John forces out. He gives Barsad a glare that does nothing but make Barsad’s smile deepen, amusement clear on his face.    
  
“Take your time,” he says, in the tone of a man talking to a small (and very stupid) child.   
  
Well, fuck him too.  
  
In the end, John has to turn slightly onto his side, weight on the side of his leg and his arm. It’s an awkward position, but it’ll have to do. John doesn’t want to lie down with Barsad here, and he can’t sit up. This is the best compromise he can come up with.   
  
“Where’s the Alpha?” he asks finally.   
  
Barsad raises an eyebrow.  
  
“Pining for him already?” he says. His voice has a mocking edge that he makes no effort to hide. “Do you _miss_ him, pup?”  
  
John wants to snarl at him. His hand tightens against the sheets, knuckles white with tension; yeah, he’d punch Barsad if he could. But right now isn’t the time for so very many reasons. Most important of all is the fact that Barsad _wants_ him to react, and the last thing John wants is to make the wolf bastard happy.   
  
He knows he’s being goaded. Maybe Barsad is trying to get him riled up just for the hell of it. Or maybe he’s testing John for vulnerabilities - going for the obvious wound and prodding it until it bleeds. If that’s his goal, he really doesn’t need to bother. John has the imprint of Bane all over his skin; he _smells_ like Bane. There’s a hollow feeling in his chest, an itch under his breastbone that feels like loneliness. Of course he’s missing Bane. He’s been so twisted up by - by _everything_ \- that he’s got no choice.  
  
John doesn’t answer. There’s no point.  
  
“Just go ahead and interrogate me,” he says instead. He feels tired. He just wants to get rid of Barsad so he can lie down and panic about how he _fucked Bane oh god_ in peace. “You don’t need to be subtle about it.”   
  
“What would I need to interrogate you about? You know nothing,” Barsad says dismissively. “No, pup. I’m here to congratulate you on your mating.” He pauses; tilts his head in acknowledgement, eyes narrow and cool. “Welcome to the Pack.”  
  
Mating. The way Barsad says it, it’s... well. It’s like he’s talking about a _marriage_.   
  
John flushes, ashamed. He doesn’t want to think about it. Doesn’t want to think about the way the word fits the weird, heated and binding thing that happened between them. Between him and Bane.   
  
“I’m not part of your Pack,” says John. But he can hear how shaky his voice is. He doesn’t sound sure of himself, and he knows there’s no way Barsad is going to miss that. Sure enough, the wolf’s eyes narrow just that little bit further.   
  
“You’re his,” says Barsad. “That makes you Pack.”  
  
Barsad says it like it’s a fact, a truth, as real as oxygen or sunlight. It’s hard to argue with that kind of pure, a-grade crazy, but John shakes his head anyway, jaw set and stubborn.   
  
“No,” John says - still shaky but oh, he wants to be sure about this. He wants Barsad to believe him. “You don’t get to decide that. _He_ doesn’t get to decide that.”  
  
Barsad looks down at him, silent.   
  
Fuck. John can’t just lie here and take this. He feels like he’s been shattered over and over again and shakily glued back together. Bane has left him raw and vulnerable, and he can’t stand the thought of continuing to passively allow Barsad to peel back what’s left of his defenses. He tries to look past Barsad at the rest of the room. He needs more than a sheet to cover himself - needs clothes, needs something to make himself feel human again. Matthieu left clothes for him earlier, but that feels like a lifetime ago, and how is John meant to _get_ to them anyway with Barsad standing over him?   
  
He’s not distracted enough to miss it when Barsad kneels down beside the bed. At this angle the cool, dead look in Barsad’s eyes is more pronounced, and John is suddenly tense. Heart pounding, flush of fear sweat on his skin.   
  
Instinct hits him fierce and clear. It says: _run._  
  
“I want you to listen to me, pup.” Barsad’s voice is quiet. But there’s something dark in it - something that makes the tension under John’s skin ratchet just that little bit higher. “If you play your part, you’ll survive. Your life may even be pleasant.” The twist of Barsad’s mouth tells John just how likely _that_ is. “But if you try and lead him away from his path, _our_ path, I will finish what I started when we first met and slit your throat. I won’t make you suffer. It will be quick. But I will do it.”  
  
Barsad’s voice is so matter of fact that it sends crawling chills down John’s spine. Right now, right at this very moment, he has no doubt that Barsad will kill him if he thinks he has to.  
  
 _Careful,_ John thinks, struggling for words, throat arid. _Careful._  
  
“What makes you think I could make him do anything?” John asks.   
  
“Don’t play the fool,” Barsad snaps back. “Even you must be aware you have power of him now.”  
  
“He’s the _Alpha_ ,” says John. The idea that John - a wolf with no Pack, an omega so ignorant that he hardly knows which way is up - could ever manipulate Bane is ridiculous.   
  
John tries not to think about the devastated pleasure he saw in Bane’s eyes or the way it sent a dark bolt of satisfaction running through his own skin - the heady pleasure of control. He tries not to think about the way Bane leaned into his hands; eyes dark, skin heated, murmuring possessive nonsense as the cool edges of his mask scraped marks against John’s skin. John had some control over him then, but that wasn’t power. That was just fucking. Just sex.   
  
Just John being used over and over again and liking it.   
  
“And you’re his mate,” respond Barsad. Calm, so calm. “You know what the means.”  
  
The beat of Bane’s heart under John’s ribs.   
  
The feel of Bane’s large hands running soft over his skin.   
  
The bright, incomprehensible devotion in his eyes.   
  
The itch of his absence, hollow like a hole in the heart.  
  
“No,” John says hoarsely. “No, no I don’t.”  
  
“Don’t lie, pup. I _know._ ” A ripple of emotion crosses Barsad’s features, so fast John almost misses it – rage and grief, murderous and howling. But then his expression smoothes out, and he’s all sharp teeth and narrowed eyes and _Barsad_ again. “You feel it in your bones.”  
  
John can’t argue. He feels like his throat has seized up over the words he wants to say, the denials he wants to make. He watches Barsad, unblinking, eyes stinging. He feels like his world has tipped.   
  
All this time he’s focused his fear and his attention on Bane. He’s forgotten to be scared of Barsad. Forgotten about the wolf’s clear-eyed, competent viciousness. Now as he looks into Barsad’s eyes he remembers the feel of Barsad’s claws on his neck, remembers the wolf’s calmly spoken words. _We will give your blood to the sewers, your bones to the earth. Your flesh to the city’s rat. Your ghost will rest easy._  
  
His neck itches.  
  
Barsad was the one to spare John’s life. Barsad was the one who gave him to Bane. All along, John’s life has been in hands just as much as it has been in Bane’s. But John forgot, John was a fucking idiot, and now he’s alone with Barsad, too stupid to know how to protect himself from the threat Barsad poses to him.   
  
“You aren’t what I would have picked for him,” Barsad continues, soft. “And make no mistake, pup: You aren’t what he would have picked up for himself. But you’re still his. Betray him and I will finish you myself.”   
  
Apparently satisfied that he’s said everything he needs to, Barsad stands up in one fluid motion and walks away from the bed. He picks something up off the floor - flings it in John’s direction. Clothes.  
  
“Get dressed,” he tells John. “Bane wants you at his side, and he’ll be growing impatient.”  
  
Barsad keeps walking. John watches him go, clutching the clothes. His mind is racing almost as fast as his heart.   
  
“So you think I’ve got power,” John says at Barsad’s retreating back. “But what about you?” When Barsad stops, but doesn’t respond, John pushes on. “I know you’re not just a plain old beta. So tell me. What power do you have, huh? What’s Bane to you?”  
  
Barsad turns to look at him. He’s smiling again. It’s a hollow, glittering smile - sharp as glass.  
  
“I live to serve,” says Barsad. “I have no power here.”  
  
John knows a lie when he hears one. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested, I have a tumblr where I ramble about comics a lot: teaspice.tumblr.com
> 
> Aaand that is my shameless self-promotion for the day done with.


	13. Chapter 13

It takes a ridiculously long time for John to get dressed. He just can’t get his body to work right. His feet don’t want to hold up his weight. His legs tremble. His hands shake as he tugs on the clothes Barsad left behind for him, fumbling with the buttons on the shirt, the zipper on the jeans. He’s not sure if it’s exhaustion or nervousness that’s making him so goddamn clumsy. Maybe both.

 

The shirt is too big on him. It’s loose around the shoulders, and long enough at the sleeves for the cuffs to brush his knuckles. It’s the collar that bothers John the most, though: it hides exactly _nothing._ His neck and collarbone are bare, and John knows for sure that they’re marked up, dark with bruises in the shape of Bane’s fingers.

 

There was a time - it feels like a whole lifetime ago - when the clothes he wore made him feel stronger. When he put on his uniform it gave him power, authority. It gave him an identity that was... bigger than he ever could be, somehow. The clothes that Barsad has left him do the opposite. They make him small. They’re too big, too awkward on him. They show all of John’s weaknesses and leave him nowhere to hide.

 

He doesn’t want to face the Pack. Not like this. Fucked, bruised, swaying on his feet. He feels like shit. He looks like it too. Probably. Almost definitely.

 

John wishes he had a mirror.

 

He’s never been the kind of guy to fuss about his looks. But then, he’s never had so much to be conscious about before, has he?

 

He takes a steadying breath and feels out the damage to his neck with his fingers. Yeah, there are definitely bruises: the skin is hot, soft and stings under the pressure of his touch. He moves his fingers up, tracing the edge of jaw, his cheekbone. His cheek is swollen, obviously still in the process of healing from the trauma it’s gone through. His mouth... he winces, pulling his fingers back from his lower lip. His mouth is swollen, too. No surprise.

 

On the plus side, at least there won’t be any bite marks on him. Bane’s muzzle is good for something after all.

 

He should go out. There’s nothing he can do to fix the way he looks. Barsad will be waiting for him, and the last thing John wants to do is give the crazy-eyed fucker another reason to threaten him. So yeah. He’ll go out. He’ll get through this.

 

But first he needs to make sure his legs won’t collapse under him. They’re still shaking, stupid and weak. John presses his heels hard against the ground and tries to think steady thoughts. Like that’ll help, somehow.

 

_He’ll be growing impatient,_ Barsad told him. Well, John doesn’t care if Bane is getting impatient. He’s not going out there without gathering what’s left of his strength together. He’s going to look like a mess no matter what he does, but at least he’ll be able to walk. At least he won’t look completely broken. He’s fed up of being on his knees.

 

When John finally - _finally_ \- feels like he’s not going to fall over if he takes more than a few steps, he goes out to meet Barsad. The look that Barsad gives him is unreadable. His smile is blade sharp.

 

He’ll kill John if he has to. No doubt about it.

 

“Come,” he says, and turns away. John follows.

 

* * *

 

 

There are so many wolves, and nowhere for John to hide.

 

Barsad walks ahead of him. He doesn’t turn back to John, doesn’t tell him where to go or what to do, so John just follows him. He feels like an idiot stumbling after Barsad, but he doesn’t know what other option he has.

 

He can feel the wolves watching him. John tries not to let himself go red under the pressure of their eyes. There’s no point being embarrassed now, after all - it’s too late for that. They’ve seen him broken. They’ve seen him beg. Now they’re watching as he limps forward, towards their Alpha, with the imprint of the Alpha all over him - in his scent, in his skin. They know what he is, and they know what his role is here. There’s no hiding it.

 

Ahead of them, Bane is crouched on the ground, surrounded by a small group of wolves. There are papers on the ground between them - maps, John thinks. (John assumed they were getting around the city on instinct, but apparently not.) He doesn’t look up as John approaches. If he was really impatient for John to get here, he’s doing a good job of hiding it now.

 

But John. John can’t help but drink in the sight of Bane. It’s like he’s been starving for him. He didn’t know how _hungry_ he was before, but now he’s got Bane in front of him the difference is obvious. His legs feel steadier under him. The agony running through his body has dulled, just a little. Whatever this thing is between them, it’s got its hold on John, and it’s not letting go.

 

Bane is wearing a thick coat; gloves on his hands. John wonders if he’s wearing the mark of John’s claws on his skin; if John has managed to bruise him as badly as Bane has bruised him. Even the idea of it sends a flare of heat through his stomach, a heat he should be way too exhausted to feel.

 

John swallows hard. Presses the need back.

 

The wolves make room for Barsad to join them, but John doesn’t move to follow him. He’s paralysed by the awful yearning inside him. If he moves he’s sure he’s going to do something stupid. For a long moment he just stands there, silent, tense as a tripwire.

 

Barsad still doesn’t look back at him, but he makes a small gesture with his left hand that’s unmistakable. _Sit._

 

John sits.

 

In the hours that follow, none of the other wolves approach him. John crouches on the floor, struggling quietly to find a comfortable position, and watches Bane.

 

John knows Bane is aware of him, even though he isn’t watching John back openly. All his attention seems to be focused on the map lying on the ground between him and the others. John can’t hear what they’re saying - he probably wouldn’t understand the language anyway. But sometimes Bane’s head tilts just a little in John’s direction, like he’s trying to hear him, or get the scent of him. He knows John’s there. He can hear John’s heart.

 

Barsad told John that he has power over Bane now. But power shouldn’t make him feel this vulnerable. Shouldn’t make him feel like all he wants to do is cross the distance between him and Bane and just _touch._

 

John breathes in and out, the scent of his Alpha in his lungs, the sound of his Alpha’s voice in his ears, and tries to remember what he was like before Bane moulded him into something new.

 

After what feels like an age, the maps are rolled away. Bane exchanges words with some of the wolves, quiet and intent. Then he gestures in John’s direction.  

 

It isn’t Matthieu who gets up, or Yann. It’s Barsad.

 

John supposes this is the best show of how far he’s gone up in the world: He’s graduated to an even scarier nursemaid. Fucking fantastic.

 

As Barsad leads him away, John turns to look at Bane. He can’t help himself.

 

Their eyes meet.

 

There’s hunger, dark and bitter, in Bane’s eyes. Maybe it’s just John’s own hunger reflected back at him. Maybe John is just imagining that this goes both ways.

 

But there’s a tug under his breastbone. Like something is winding up tight inside him and forcing the breath right out of him.

 

They’re bound to each other. No doubt about it.

 

* * *

 

 

John’s life settles into a pattern.

 

The days are all the same. Hellish. Barsad collects John and leaves him sitting somewhere, like he’s a small kid or a _pet_ or something, until the day’s work is done.

 

Whatever the Pack is up to, it keeps them busy. Bane and some of his closest men continue to pour over maps and documents that John is too far away to make sense of. Other wolves come and go - carrying packs, building up food supplies, leaving the sewers and returning to pass on information to Bane’s most senior wolves in quiet, careful voices. John watches it all. He’s got nothing better to do.

 

Bane never pays any particular attention to John, but during the day  he seems to want - or maybe need - to have John near him. Not near enough to touch, but at least near enough to see. It’s torture.

 

John sleeps alone at night.

 

John has no idea where the hell Bane is when he sleeps, and he doesn’t care. He _doesn’t._ But at night he dreams of a wolf and a twisted, snow-drenched city and he wakes up sweating tears, his chest aching hollow, his dick hard. It’s fucked up, how much he needs Bane. Fucked up. But he’s not going to beg. He’s not going to crawl anymore if he can help it.

 

(And he can, he can. For now.)

 

His nights are nightmarish, and his days are boring as shit. But things change a little when one of the female wolves takes notice of him.

 

There are only a few women in the Pack, tough as nails and just as feral as the men as far as John can tell, but this one in particular exudes power. Oh, she’s respectful enough of Bane: lowers her eyes in front of him, tilts her head in that faint gesture of submission all the wolves seem to know instinctually. He’s seen her do it. But her spine is straight and her eyes as hard as iron.

 

The day she turns her attention on him he feels her gaze like a blow. It’s hard not to meet it.

 

Her gaze is straightforward, unblinking.

 

“Come and help me,” she says, voice rich with authority. She quirks a finger, eyebrow raised at a sweeping angle.

 

After a moment’s hesitation, John gets up. She’s kneeling in a circle of what looks like junk. It’s only when he gets closer that he realises she’s surrounded by guns - some dismantled, some just plain broken.

 

 “You’re making weapons,” he says. He can’t keep his voice neutral; can’t hide his disbelief. What the fuck do wolves need _weapons_ for anyway?

 

John doesn’t ask the question, but she must read it in his expression anyway.

 

“Some of us prefer to keep our options open when it comes to killing,” she says. A hint of claw glints at the ends of her fingers, then blinks away as they settle back into the shape of human nails. “These aren’t good for everything, you know.”

 

She points one of those perfectly human fingers at a spot on the floor.

 

“Give me that rag,” she says. “And the gun oil.”

 

John hesitates again. Looks over at Bane, who isn’t look back. Barsad is by his side, watching John coolly. But there’s nothing in his expression that suggests imminent death, so John decides to go with it.

 

He kneels down and passes her what she wants. She accepts without comment. He sits by her as she cleans one of the weapons, her callused hands moving nimbly over the metal. Her grip is firm, her movements neat.

 

Claws or no claws, she’s got a killer’s hands.

 

“My name is Shiva,” she tells him. “And you are our Alpha’s bitch.”

 

“John,” he bites out. “My name is John.”

 

“Touchy,” she laughs.

 

She’s got a strong, deep laugh and a hardness in her expression that makes John feel like he’s been played. She’s just tested him, and he has no idea if he’s passed.

 

She slants a look at him. Thoughtful, considering.

 

“Tomorrow you’ll come and help me,” she says, after a moment. It’s unmistakably an order. “I’ll teach you how to take care of the guns.”

 

“I know about guns,” says John. He’s a cop, after all. Or was.

 

“You think you do,” she says. She gives him in a condescending smile. “You choice, _John._ But it’ll give you something to do other than pine.”

 

“I’m not pining,” protests John.

 

Lie.

 

She laughs again. Hard, cruel amusement fills her voice and leaves John suddenly cold.

 

“The full moon’s coming,” she says. “If you’re not pining yet, you will be soon. I guarantee it.”

****


	14. Chapter 14

It’s only when John starts waking up every morning with his blood burning in his veins that he realises Shiva was right. The need is getting worse - so much worse. The closer the full moon draws, the harder it digs its claws into him, and there’s nothing John can do to stop it. Not a damn thing.

 

He tries fucking his own fist; even tries to press a finger or two tentatively inside himself, even though it hurts and feels alien, _wrong._ All he manages to do is twist up new knots of desire in his gut. All he wants is Bane: Bane’s hands, the cool brush of his muzzle against John’s neck, the stretch of his dick inside him. Nothing else is going to help.

 

He’s got an animal hunger in his bones. It won’t be long before it eats him whole.

 

Right now his self-hatred is so damn sharp he could probably cut his own throat with it. He could forgive himself - maybe, just maybe - if all he craved was Bane’s skin. But it’s more than that. He wants to kneel at Bane’s feet. He wants to _belong_ to Bane, to lose himself completely. He’s worked so hard to hold himself together, but it’s too late. He’s been unravelled. Whatever Bane wants, that’s what John now wants to be.

 

Being around Bane becomes a slow, quiet kind of torture. He’s stopped expecting ( _hoping_ ) for Bane to come to him at night. But Barsad keeps dragging John into the heart of the Pack, day after day. Bane is usually there, just out of reach. Ignoring him.

 

The longer he’s near Bane, too far to touch him but too close to ignore the pull of his presence, the harder it becomes to think. Breathe. He spends hours in a daze. Lightheaded, he can hear the rush of blood in his own head, the thump of his heart. It’s getting harder to keep himself steady and strong; to remember how angry he is, and how much he wants he wants to be free.

 

If Bane feels even half as fucked up as John does, he’s not showing it. John should know - he watches him enough. The Alpha looks the same as always: imposing, steady, sharp-eyed. But then, Bane’s the one in control here, isn’t he? He’s calling all the shots. If he wants John, he’ll fuck him. He doesn’t have to lie in bed alone, hungry and hating. He doesn’t have to wonder if he’s going to have to resort to begging before he’ll be touched. (Because he needs. He _needs_.)

 

At least being Shiva’s lackey is a distraction from the yearning. Ever since the first time she ordered John to her side - _tomorrow you’ll come and help me_ \- she’s kept him close. She only asks John to do small, menial tasks – clean this, hand over that – but she keeps him busy. And more than anything, John needs something to occupy his fucked up brain. So he goes along with it.

 

John doesn’t like Shiva. Not exactly. But she’s not an easy person to like. There’s something cold about her, a kind of polish to her hardness that makes every move she makes seem calculated. And the way she looks at John....

 

She looks at John like she can see right through him. She looks at him the way she looks at her weapons.

 

She looks at him like he’s a broken gun.

 

He’s not a person to her, and that’s - fine. John is getting used to feeling like something sub-human. Besides, at least Shiva looks at him at all. That’s more than anyone else in the Pack does anymore. It’s weird. When Bane first broke him down, first got him on his knees, they couldn’t _stop_ looking at him. Now he’s as good as a ghost.

 

Practically alone, practically invisible, John gets a whole load of opportunities to observe the wolves who’ve managed to ruin his life.

 

He learns fast that the Pack isn’t as united as it first appears. The wolves all obey Bane without complaint, but they’re more than willing to fight amongst themselves for authority. John watches every fight that breaks out, every howl and snarl and spill of fresh blood and thinks, _you’re all fucking monsters. All of you._

 

Seems he’s always got the energy for a bit more hate.

 

Barsad clearly has a special position in Bane’s confidence, but Shiva has power in her own right. It’s not a power John really understands until the day she gets in an argument over the distribution of food supplies with a stocky, pale-haired wolf.

 

John’s barely paying attention, but he notices it when Shiva gets to her feet. Her feet are bare, callused, toes splaying flat against the ground. When the other wolf snaps at her - snarling, showing the red of his gums - she turns on those feet, moving lithe and easy like she’s twirling to music.

 

She’s on him before John can even blink. The wolf goes down with a howl, his rage and fear thick on the air.

 

She uses her claws like they’re butcher’s knives. _Carves_ him, until his howls have softened to whimpers and he’s a fallen mess, baring his neck in submission.

 

She places her foot over his neck. Firm.

 

“Shall I show you mercy, brother?” Shiva asks. Her voice is cool, almost bored.

 

When the wolf gasps no, she lets him up.

 

The wolves, John remembers with a shudder, don’t think of mercy the way humans do.

 

“Learn to fight before you argue with me again,” she says.

 

The fight’s done with, so John looks away. Cold.

 

A hunk of bread drops in front of him. He looks up and meets Shiva’s eyes.

 

“You look ill, John,” she says. “Eat.”

 

The bread is fresh, thick and soft. Food isn’t going to fix John’s hunger, but he tears into it anyway. John’s not an idiot. He’s not going to ignore an order from another psychopath. He’s learnt his fucking lesson a hundred times over.

 

Shiva walks away from him. Her footprints are pink.

 

* * *

 

The full moon’s drawing closer. Closer.

 

The wolf is rising in his skin. And the wolf – that animal part of his nature that seems to be eating away at everything else that matters to him – wants Bane. More than anything.

 

John lies awake at night and wants, and wants. And wants. Inside him the wolf shifts, restless. He feels like his skin is constantly on the edge of a shift. His insides ache.

 

There’s nothing to stop John getting up and finding Bane. He realises that now. There’s never been anything stopping him from going to Bane. Just pride. Just his humanity.

 

With the moon crawling closer, humanity seems very far away.

 

So what if he has to beg? It won’t be the first time he’s had to do it. It probably won’t be the last. And the wolf wants to bare its throat. _John_ wants to bare his throat.

 

He remembers Shiva pressing her opponent into the ground, foot to neck. He thinks of the smell of blood, of the hunger like a yawning pit inside him. He thinks of Bane.

 

Something dark and heated curls shamefully in his stomach.

 

He’s not fully awake. There’s a dream running through his head, sticking to the backs of his eyelids. He’s dreaming of the grey wolf in the twisted city - of being four-legged and running through the dark and snow. He thinks he can hear his Alpha howling. Doesn’t know if he’s dreaming it or really hearing it. But it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all. He needs to go to Bane.

 

He stumbles away from the bed, away, out - he can hear Bane’s heartbeat in his head, feel it under his own ribs. His Alpha needs him. He needs to go.

 

Barsad is standing guard, leaning against a wall, arms crossed. His eyes glint in the dark. He doesn’t look at all surprised to see John.

 

“Go back to sleep,” he says.

 

“I need to leave,” John says simply, still tangled up in a dream. His mouth is numb. Heavy with teeth. “He’s looking for me.”

 

“He doesn’t want you tonight.”

  

“Full moon’s coming,” John murmurs, voice coming out thin and raw. “Tomorrow it’s - ”

 

“But not tonight.” Barsad hasn’t moved. His voice is calm, steel firm. “Go to bed.”

 

John doesn’t want to move. Now all the humanity’s slipping off him, now he’s half dreaming, he’s sure that Bane needs him. He’s so very sure. He doesn’t know why Bane’s been keeping his distance, _testing_ John, but he knows this agony is mutual. He knows Bane’s hunger because it’s his own hunger. Bane’s heartbeat is a painful thump inside him; a demand. The wolf inside John understands. The wolf knows.

 

_Mate._ The Alpha needs his mate.

 

But he doesn’t have the words to explain it. He stares at Barsad, swaying unsteadily on his feet, willing the wolf to somehow understand.

 

“Not tonight,” Barsad repeats. Soft.

 

He doesn’t blink. He stares John down. Feral light in his eyes.

 

And John -

 

“Tomorrow,” says John. For once, it’s not a plea. It’s a demand. “Take me to him tomorrow.”

 

There’s a long silence as they stare at each other. Then Barsad tilts his head. A small acknowledgement.

 

“As you say, pup,” he says. “Tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

The next day, Barsad doesn’t take him to the Pack.

 

He takes him straight to Bane. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblrrrr: teaspice.tumblr.com
> 
> Next chapter there will be more Bane. I promise!


	15. Chapter 15

John thought the first room the wolves kept him in was a cell. And it was: dark, dank, inescapable. But this room -

 

This room is a cage.

 

The door John can see set in the wall in front of him looks like a huge block of metal. It has a heavy latch. A lock. There’s no grate or window to let light or air in. But there’s something else about it - something _wrong_ \- that makes John’s skin crawl with unease.

 

It’s only when he gets closer that he realises it smells faintly of silver.

 

He stops dead. No way is he getting any closer. _No._

 

Barsad, walking in front of him, doesn’t even slow down. He loosens his scarf from around his neck as he approaches the cage, winding the cloth around his hand. He fishes out a key; unlocks the door. Then he reaches for the heavy latch, pressing his body weight behind it to shove the door open. The motion is practiced, like he’s done this many times before.

 

He turns to look at John.

 

“Go in,” he says. “He’s waiting for you.”

 

At any other time, John would flat out refuse. Dig his heels in. Show some _spine._ No sane wolf would willingly walk through a door built with silver - what kind of idiot does Barsad think he is? (No, nevermind: John knows the answer to thatquestion.) He can’t go in there. Shouldn’t. Won’t.

 

But.

 

But tonight is going to be the full moon, and John’s need is much stronger than his survival instinct. That’s the truth of it. He’s so far gone already that even he knows he must look kind of pitiful. His vision is shaky, eyes blinking in and out of wolf brightness. Barsad’s face warps in front of him, shifting out of focus like a bad video.

 

So he doesn’t fight. He just... hesitates.

 

“Bane,” he says, tongue clumsy. “Is he...?”

 

_Is he really in there? Or is this a trick? Is this just another way for you shits to mess with my head?_

 

Barsad opens his mouth to answer. But he isn’t the one who speaks.

 

“Robin.” Bane’s voice cuts through the chill air, hollowly echoing, settling soft over John’s skin. Like a noose. “Come.”

 

John doesn’t even think about it. He obeys.

 

Once he’s through the door, passed the barrier of silver alloy, he can smell Bane. Feel the tug of him, a winding pull beneath John’s ribs, a force like gravity.

 

Bane is sitting on the ground, back against the wall, legs bent with his arms resting on his knees. His pale, beautiful eyes are fixed unblinking on John. He looks like he’s been waiting.

 

John walks over to him. He kneels down.

 

As soon as John is on the floor, near enough to be touched, Bane sets one large hand gently against his face. His skin is so very warm. John tilts into the touch, just a little. Lets his eyelids drop shut.

 Distantly John hears the sound of the door clanging shut.

 

“Robin,” Bane murmurs. His fingers scrape a line from John’s forehead through his hair. A benediction.

 

John takes a moment to just… _breathe._

 

For the first time in days he feels steady. He feels like himself. The hunger is still swimming through his blood - his skin burns where Bane is touching him - but it’s dulled down a little. His body knows it’s going to get what it needs. His Alpha is here.

 

He reaches one hand out blindly. Presses it to Bane’s skin. He can feel Bane’s warmth under his fingers, feel his heartbeat, the up down motion of his chest as he breathes. And Bane lets him. He makes a sound as he exhales - pleased, content. John echoes him.

 

If they were different people - people who loved each other, who _wanted_ to touch each other - this would be a tender moment. And that fucking kills John, that he’s being _tender_ with a monster, a monster that’s stripped him down to the need and the wolf and murdered all the parts of him that are good and brave and human.

 

It kills him that touching Bane makes him feel whole.

 

Maybe that’s why John speaks. Words are the only real weapons he has left against Bane - against himself. His body has turned traitor on him, after all.

 

“I think you enjoy hurting yourself as much - as much as you enjoy hurting me,” says John, voice less shaky than expected. Maybe it’s the anger making it steady. Maybe. “That’s the only explanation I can think of for the way you’ve been avoiding me.” He opens his eyes. Fixes his gaze on Bane’s muzzled face, on his gleaming eyes, and manages a smile. “Am I right, _Alpha_?”

 

Bane stares at him, unreadable. Under John’s hand his heartbeat is steady.

 

His hand trails, still gentle, down John’s face. He traces the tendons of John’s neck. Settles his fingers against the collar of John’s shirt. John feels an edge of claw snag at the cloth.

 

Then, with deliberate slowness, Bane starts to cut.

 

He doesn’t mark John’s skin, but it’s a close thing. John feels his claws, hard and sharp, scrape over flesh. Feels his skin flush, heated, almost-hurt.

 

“You should not try to goad me,” Bane says quietly. Cut. Cut. “It will not end well for you, my omega.”

 

“It hurt you,” John goes on, too stubborn to quit, shuddering at the dangerous press of Bane’s claws, struggling to stay still. “As much. As it hurt me. To keep away.” He bares his teeth, smile turning hard. “I could _feel_ it.”

 

Bane’s eyes narrow, going as hard as John’s smile. And that’s more like it. That’s what John wants. Fuck gentleness. It’ll be better if Bane just makes him bleed.

 

But Bane is still stripping the clothes off of him in slow shreds, still stripping him down to his skin without leaving a mark on him.

 

“It was not necessary to touch you,” says Bane. Voice quiet. A thread of menace.

 

“And now?” asks John. “Why is it necessary _now_?”

 

“Would you like me to stop?” Bane asks in return. His hands go still and John - John arches against the sharp points of his fingers, helpless from the punch of loss that runs through him.

 

_No. God no._

 

“As I thought,” Bane says softly.

 

His fingers begin moving again. Rip. Cut. The sharp tease of claw against skin. John tries not to press into it.

 

“You want to anger me,” Bane continues. “You want me to take the choice away from you. To force myself on you.” Soft, tender as a bruise. John thinks Bane might just be smiling, under that muzzle. “Is that what you desire? Would you like to weep under me, Robin?”

 

_No. Yes. No._

 

John doesn’t know what the hell he wants. But he does know that he’s hard; knows that his breath is coming out of him in shallow gasps, that he’s gone slick and aching in a way that he shouldn’t be, _inside._

 

Bane seems to think that’s enough of answer.

 

John doesn’t know how it happens - doesn’t know if he makes the first move himself or Bane manhandles him into it - but suddenly he’s on his hands and knees, panting as Bane’s clawed, capable hands shred away the rest of his clothes and leave him bare. Then Bane’s hands - human now, bruising rough - grip his thighs, spreading them wider. And wider.

 

It happens so fast that it takes a moment longer for John’s brain to catch up. When he realises how Bane has arranged him, he flushes. Feels himself go dizzy.

 

Bane’s got him on display. With his legs spread wide and his body angled against the floor, Bane can see how hard John is, how slick. How he _aches._

 

It’s unbearable. It’s inhuman.

 

“Show yourself to me,” murmurs Bane, rubbing circles against the sensitive flesh of John’s thighs.

 

John swallows. Mouth dry.

 

“I _am._ ”

 

But John knows it’s not enough.

 

Bane wants everything, and that’s still more than John is willing to give.

 

He feels one of Bane’s hands move from his thigh to his scalp. Fingers card through his hair, soothing and aggravating the heat banked up inside him.

 

Bane’s voice is low and dark. “Show me and I promise to make you weep.”

 

John shudders. Head to toe.

 

_I don’t want to want this. I don’t._

 

He presses his forehead against the ground, tugging against Bane’s grip. Bane’s hand follows him.

 

The ground is cool. John closes his eyes tight. Thinks of how hard he is, how hungry he is, how much the hunger hurts. He thinks of the gentleness of Bane’s hand on his hair.

 

He thinks of how good it felt, last time Bane fucked him.

 

He tilts his hips. Arches his back. He can feel the chill of the air. The heat of Bane’s fingers. He’s more than naked, so bare that he feels like his soul’s been pinned out like a butterfly under glass.

He’s offering himself up. Sacrifice.

 

The hand still at John’s thigh moves up. Skims over his ass, dips over the contours of his stomach; cups his cock in a grip so gentle that it’s like a new kind of agony.

 

John squirms under his touch, trying to arch higher, present himself like it’ll make any goddamn difference at all. It doesn’t. Bane doesn’t speed up. He takes his time.

 

“You are here to serve a purpose, Robin,” Bane says finally. Under the hiss of the mask, his voice sounds raw. “I can’t allow myself to forget that.”

 

John is pretty sure that’s more than Bane intended to admit. Not that it makes any sense to John - not that _anything_ makes sense to John, with his insides burning so hot with craving. He’d do anything Bane wants right now. Say anything. What does Bane want from him? Is making a whore of himself not enough?

 

He can’t fucking stand this.

 

“Then make me serve,” bites out John, because he can’t take it anymore. His thighs are slick; his cock _hurts._ “Fuck me.”

 

The hand in John’s hair tightens brutally. He moans.

 

So _that_ was the right thing to say.

 

Bane’s body is over his, not pinning him but caging him in. One hand slams flat against the ground by John’s side. The other keeps its grip on his hair in silent command, holding his face down against the ground. _Stay._

 

John makes another sound - too high, too thin for a moan.

 

_Please._

 

There are no fingers inside John this time. No prep. Just Bane’s dick pressing into him, bigger and hotter than John remembers. Bane doesn’t give him time to adjust. There’s brutal force behind his thrusts as he slides deep into John, forcing John’s body to take him. And that’s what John wanted, right? Bane forcing him. Bane taking the choice away.

 

It hurts. But it’s a good hurt. John’s mad with the feel of it: feels like he’s drugged, like there’s too much inside him. But he needs _more._

 

He presses his elbows hard against the ground and pushes his hips up to meet the next hard slide of Bane’s cock. As a reward somehow he gets Bane deeper inside him; feels the cloth of Bane’s pants against his ass, the rough warmth of his skin.

 

He hears his Alpha make a sound, more animal than human, and his thrusts turn savage.

 

It feels like he’s moving John like a puppet, forcing John to take his cock rough and unbearably deep. But John’s not stopping him. John’s arching up to meet him, split wide and wet, cheek bruising all over again against the ground. Every shift of Bane’s dick winds him up tighter and tigher. He’s shivering on a knife-edge. The pleasure roaring through him is ugly, shameful. He never wants it to end.

 

“I need,” he gasps out, “I need - ”

 

“Yes,” says Bane. Hand twisting in John’s hair, cock fucking John deep. “ _Do it_.”

 

And just like that John’s coming untouched. Screaming his throat raw.

 

Bane’s not stopping.

 

John comes again before Bane finally swells up inside him. Shudders through a dry orgasm, pleasure wrenched out of his exhausted skin.

 

Bane gets an arm around John’s stomach, keeping his lower body pinned up close against Bane’s. Keeping Bane’s dick where it belongs, pulsing deep and hot inside John. Knotting them together.

 

John’s still shaking with the aftershocks of orgasm. But beneath his skin he can feel Bane’s heart; feel Bane’s lungs, the rush of his blood, the shudder of his breath beneath the mask. In that moment he knows for sure that he and his Alpha are one creature. A mated pair.

 

Eventually Bane slips out of him and lowers him to the ground. The feeling of oneness fades but doesn’t go away. Not entirely.

 

John curls up carefully on his side.

 

After a moment Bane leaves him. He goes and sits by the wall again, staring off into the middle distance. John wants to make him stay close; wants to keep the feel of Bane’s skin against his own. But he can’t. That isn’t what he’s here for.

 

He’s here to be used.

 

“Are you going to lock me up in here?” John asks tiredly. “Keep me caged?”

 

When Bane doesn’t answer, doesn’t look at him, John says, “You don’t have to. I’ve got nowhere to run.”

 

And it’s true.

 

He’s not the old John anymore. He can’t go back to his old life. No matter how much he wants to.

 

Bane finally looks at him. There’s something sad about his eyes. Sad and terrible.

 

“This cage is not for you, Robin,” Bane says finally. “Rest. There is a long night ahead.”

 

John doesn’t want to see that look in Bane’s eyes anymore. So he nods.

 

Then he closes his own eyes and waits for moonrise.

 

* * *

 

 

John wakes up to the feel of claws raking down his face.

 

He’s been dozing in fits and starts, the wolf in him already restless and ready to transform. But he doesn’t expect the agony that tears across his face. He yells - claps a hand over his mouth, blindly trying to defend himself, and feels smooth, unharmed skin.

 

But the pain - the pain that’s already fading away like it never existed - _that_ was real enough. His lip, his nose, his cheeks sting with the echo of it.

 

He scrambles up from the ground into a crouch. The full moon’s not out yet, but it’s close enough that John feels more wolf than man, more animal than human. He presses his knuckles into the floor; breathes hard, searching out Bane’s scent. Alpha. He needs his Alpha to fix this.

 

And there’s Bane, still against the wall, hand clutching hard at his mask. There’s a dull gleam to his skin, like it’s rippling out of shape. Claws curving his fingers.

 

Bane’s beginning to shift.

 

Too soon. Bane shouldn’t be transforming this early, not when he clearly doesn’t want to, when the moon’s not even full.  He’s crouching, head in his hands. His finger shudder against his scalp. Claws drawing blood.

 

“Bane,” says John. There’s a rumble in his throat - the wolf sneaking into his voice. He tries again: “Alpha.”

 

Bane looks up sharply. His eyes are bright.

 

“Come here, Robin,” he says. His voice is ragged. “It’s almost time.”

 

John crawls over to him. As he gets closer the pain suddenly worsens. Spikes. He feels like his skin is peeling away from his face; like he should be screaming. But he doesn’t stop moving. Some instinct is telling him this is right, that this will make it okay. He is a wolf, an omega, and his Alpha needs him.

 

Tears drip slowly down his cheeks.

 

Bane takes his face in his hands, tilting it up. The pain John’s feeling settles and solidifies. He can feel it funnelling into him through that bond tying him to Bane. Running into him like poison.

 

This is Bane’s pain. Not his.

 

Bane stares down at him. He’s looking at the tears on John’s cheeks. The agonised shape of his mouth.

 

“I cannot,” Bane says suddenly, calmly. He clutches spasmodically at John’s face, like he can’t control the strength of his grip. But his voice is strong. Iron. “I cannot do it.”

 

Bane shoves John back. John hits the floor hard, shoulder bursting with pain. He cries out. Can’t help it.

 

“Barsad!” roars out Bane. Voice savage. _“Barsad!”_

 

There’s no response. Bane shouts Barsad’s name again, shouts an order in a language John doesn’t know. His voice is ragged and wild, a mad wolf’s voice. It promises blood.

 

The door clangs open.

 

Barsad’s face is very white. He stares at Bane, clutching the door with his scarf-wrapped hand. He’s already shaking his head. No, no.

 

Whatever Bane wants, it’s nothing good.

 

Bane is breathing heavily. There’s a sheen of sweat on his shifting skin.

 

“Take him away,” Bane says.

 

“It has to be done, brother,” Barsad says, and to John he sounds desperate. He doesn’t seem to care that John is naked, clutching his shoulder, face stained with tears. All his attention is on Bane, who is still crouched on the floor in obvious agony. “Brother, he must serve his purpose - ”

 

“I... am still your Alpha,” grits out Bane. “And you will obey me. _Get him out.”_

 

Barsad may look like a scrawny little shit, but he’s strong. He has John off the ground in seconds. He’s not careful: he shoves John out into the corridor, letting him fall to the floor as he turns back to the cage.

 

Bane is trying to get to his feet. Looming up in the dark. His breathing has turned to a low, wet snarl.

 

“Don’t look,” hisses Barsad. “You have no right to look.”

 

But John still sees, in the moments before Barsad manages to slam the door shut: Bane, ripping off his mask, pulling it away with a low moan like the howl of a feral animal, a dog gone rabid.

 

John sees his scars.

 

Then the door’s shut. Bane is out of sight. Barsad is stumbling back, silver burns on the edge of one palm, his wrist. He’s breathing heavily, wild despair in his eyes.

 

_This cage is not for you, Robin._

 

It’s only when John hears the hard heavy thud of a body against metal, hears the hiss of silver against skin and a mindless, entirely inhuman howl of fury that John finally understands.

 

The cage is for Bane.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....*shuffles away*


	16. Chapter 16

As John lies on the floor, cold horror seeping through his veins at the awful howling coming from behind that door, he feels the change begin. His bones are shifting under his skin, flesh rippling, warping to fit his new shape. It doesn’t hurt. Not exactly. Shifting feels like stretching out a cramped muscle; like sucking a deep breath into air-starved lungs. It’s pure release.

 

The distraction of it is almost a relief. In only a matter of seconds, John won’t be human anymore. He’ll be all wolf. Then he won’t have to think about the sounds Bane is making. He won’t have to think about what it all _means._

 

He feels the insistent pull of the moon right through him - _now now shift now_ \- and at first he doesn’t try to resist it.

 

Then Barsad grabs him by the wrist. Hard.

 

His grip is vicious, all sharp changing bones and claws like knives. The shock of it is enough to make John focus through the haze of moon madness. He listens to Barsad’s voice, low and tense with urgency.

 

“Don’t let yourself change,” Barsad is saying. His face is pale and strange, shifting between human and animal just like John’s must be. But he’s trying to hold the shift back. He’s trembling visibly from the strain. Eyes gleaming bright. “Not here. He’ll kill himself trying to get to you. Do you understand?”

 

“No,” John says blankly.

 

Barsad swears loudly and hauls him to his feet.

 

“Don’t change,” Barsad orders again. He starts to drag John away from the door. “The further away I take you, the less he will feel your presence and perhaps - _what did I say, pup?_ ”

 

He grinds down hard on the bones of John’s wrist, stopping him from shifting any further than he already has. John lets out a whimper.

 

Behind them, Bane howls louder.

 

It’s hard to think through the urgent need to slip into his four-legged form. But now that John’s brain has been temporarily shocked back into working order he can hear Bane loud and clear, clawing at the door, throwing his massive body weight against metal. He can’t help but think of how the silver must be burning at Bane’s skin, seeping into him like poison. Can’t help but think about the fact that Bane sounds like he wants to rip the world apart and feed on its bones, and the only thing stopping him is that goddamn door.

 

The thought is enough - just enough - to give John the strength to stay human a heartbeat longer.

 

It hurts not to give in. Fighting the full moon is like fighting gravity. His head is pounding, pain blinding. There are too many forces pressing in on him at once: the need to shift, the tug of Barsad’s hand on his wrist, the instinct to get back to Bane’s side.

 

The instinct to run.

 

He stumbles after Barsad. He can smell the Pack - scent of them wild and familiar, almost comforting. He knows they must already be transformed. He wants to be with them, to mingle with them and sink into the relief offered by their presence. He wants their scents close - wants to see them in their true forms.

 

That _want -_ that’s the wolf talking. It isn’t what John wants. He’d happily never see a single member of the Pack ever again. But the wolf -

 

The wolf is taking over.

 

“I can’t hold on much longer,” John grits out.

 

“Try,” says Barsad. His voice is almost a snarl. His jaw must have changed, maybe his entire face, but John can’t see it face from this angle. He’s behind Barsad, tripping over his feet, struggling to stay upright when his body keeps changing and his centre of balance continues to shift.

 

John bends forward, stomach cramping. Tries not to vomit.

 

Fuck Barsad. He can’t hold any longer.

 

“I can’t,” he gasps out. “ _I can’t - ”_

 

Barsad shoves him forward.

 

John falls. He scrapes over the ground, rolling once, twice. He can feel grit on his skin - grit and dirt. The ground is cold. His eyes are shut. He thinks. At some point he must have closed them, because all he can see is darkness - all he can hear is the low whisper of paws against the floor, the hushed sound of a hundred wolves shifting quiet and watchful through the sewer darkness towards him.

 

( _now now shift now_ )

 

He thinks he hears Barsad cry out, raw and strange, but he can’t focus on that. Barsad is just shifting. Like John, he’s reached his limit. The moon is stronger, their _nature_ is stronger, than both of them. Any of them.

 

The Pack are around him. He can’t stop himself any longer. He has a skin to shed; another skin to wear.

 

John shifts.

 

* * *

 

He wants his mate.

 

There’s no room in his head anymore for complicated emotion, for the hatred that usually twines up with the wanting when he thinks of Bane. Bane is his Alpha, bound up with him flesh to heart to soul. His need for Bane is pure, a razor-edged and guiltless hunger. He wants his mate, and his mate isn’t here. Instead he’s surrounded by other wolves - all bigger than him, all rangy and sharp-toothed and scarred. He takes the smellsight of them in. He recognises them for what they are.

 

This is his Pack.

 

He can’t deny it - it doesn’t matter that this is a truth his human self has been viciously, tenaciously resisting. He knows their scents. They know his. There’s a pull between them. A binding. The bond is not like the one he shares with his mate, but it’s no less real. It’s a solid grounding he never knew he needed. Never let himself recognise. It gives him strength.

 

It makes the lack of his mate bearable.

 

But only just.

 

In his rightful skin, he’s painfully aware of the fact that his mate is caged and in pain, as no wolf should be. His mate is hurting. He knows this. He felt it before he was taken away - before his mate _pushed_ him away, his scent thick with fear and hunger, and a loneliness so deep it was like a dark well. Even now with their bond stretched thin, he can feel an echo of Bane’s agony racing through his own nerves. His muzzle feels flayed. His fur should be soaked with blood. He should be _howling._

 

It’s too much. Even this is too much. It’ll drive him mad.

 

He wants to curl up on the ground and breath, slow and careful, through the hurt. He wants to concentrate on surviving. But he needs to be with his mate, so he tries to slip through the Pack, back towards his Alpha’s cage. The need to be with Bane, agony or no agony, is a compulsion he can’t deny.

 

One wolf bars his way. Sharp-eyed. Staring at him dead on. The wolf’s paws are raw with burns. Silver.

 

_Barsad,_ he thinks. And then the thought flits away. His mind is small now with need and pain, and has no room for human things.

 

The other wolf pushes him back, back. He snarls at the other wolf weakly, but doesn’t try to fight. It hurts too much to fight.

 

Eventually he crouches low, surrounded by his Pack, the only comfort and sanity he can rely on. They gather around him, soft and warm, cocooning him in. Caging him. He snarls again, weak, shaking. It does him no good.

 

He will go to his mate when the sun rises. He decides this as a she-wolf, dark and sharp-toothed, curls up beside him and lays her muzzle over his own. He will go his mate on two legs and he will not allow himself to be sent away. He’ll go where he belongs.

 

But for now, under the moon, he snarls and twitches as the sharp-eyed wolf paces, as the she-wolf croons, and feels it in his own flesh as Bane throws his body against the door and burns, and burns, and burns.

  
It’s a long night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, tumblr pimp: teaspice.tumblr.com. Hope to see you there. ;)


	17. Chapter 17

When John wakes up he’s human again and wrapped up in someone’s bedding. He’s not on a bed - he can feel the ground underneath him, feel a crack in the cement digging uncomfortably into his hip - but he’s been wrapped up so carefully that even though he’s ( _still_ ) naked, he doesn’t really feel the cold.

 

What he does feel is exhausted. Usually after a full moon he’s jittery, energised. The shift usually renews him, makes him feel raw and dizzy and _alive._ But this time he’s running on empty. He feels hollow, like his skin is too thin to hold him together and he’s going to fly apart. He squeezes his eyes tight shut, struggling to stay whole.

 

Any second now -

 

“Calm down,” says Shiva. Cool, so very cool. “You’re panicking.”

 

 _I’m not,_ John thinks, but yeah. Yeah he is. His heart is racing. He’s clammy with sweat. It seems like he’s always on the edge of panic these days.

 

Shiva presses her knuckles to his forehead. There’s nothing intimate about her touch. Nothing comforting. Just the light press of skin against his skin, dry and unfamiliar. But somehow it calms him down. His heartrate starts to settle.

 

“There,” says Shiva. She keeps her hand on him. “Being near Pack helps.”

 

John keeps his eyes closed just a little longer. Then he opens them and forces himself to take in his surroundings.

 

Shiva is sitting cross-legged on the ground beside him. She looks a hell of a lot better than John feels. She’s dressed, hair brushed, clothes neat. If she’s had time, since the full moon, to make herself look so human... how long has John been asleep?

 

Behind her, John can see rolls of bedding everywhere on the ground, some with people curled up in them, some empty. This must be where the rest of the Pack sleeps. There’s not much privacy, but it’s pretty obvious to John that he’s been placed in one of the more secluded spots, far back in a corner under the shade of darkness. And Shiva’s body is shielding him too.

 

There’s no sign of Barsad. And Bane... wherever he is, he’s too far away for John to feel the weight of his presence. The realisation makes John restless. He doesn’t know if it’s a relief or not to be away from Bane. He’s not sure he _wants_ to know.

 

Shiva’s hand moves away from his forehead. She rests it loosely over one knee instead; looks down at John with dark, clinical eyes.

 

Then she leans in closer, blocking out his view entirely.

 

“Barsad is watching over Bane while he recovers,” she says, voice so soft John had to strain to hear it. “He left his two little pets to watch you, but I told them to leave.” A pause. “They didn’t argue.”

 

“Surprise,” John says flatly. She probably didn’t even have to threaten Yann and Matthieu to make them go. But she’s Shiva - she doesn’t have to threaten anyone. It’s implicit. “You wanted to play babysitter, huh?” he asks. “Feeling maternal?”

 

He doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s getting more restless as the seconds tick by ( _mate, he needs his mate_ ), too agitated to think straight. If he thinks anything, it’s that she’ll take it as a joke. Ignore him.

 

But instead she says, “I’m nobody’s mother anymore, John.”

 

It takes a moment for her words to sink in. And they do sink - settle cold and heavy in John’s chest.

 

He hopes he’s misunderstood her.

 

But she’s unsmiling, and there’s something - tight - about the way she’s holding herself. Like she’s keeping something carefully coiled back. Even worse, he can _feel_ her tension. The same instinct that now tells him she’s his Pack, that gave her the ability to calm his racing heart, tells him that she’s a coiled wire of feeling.

 

John doesn’t like what this full moon has done to him. Not one bit.

 

“Go on, John,” she says. “Ask.”

 

“Ask you about what?”

 

“About me. My child,” she says, all hard outward calm. “Or ask me about the Pack, if you like. Ask me about why our Alpha needs you. Ask me what it really means to be an omega. Anything you like.”

 

She shouldn’t be saying this to him.

 

If there’s one thing John has learned during his time with the Pack, it’s that they like him ignorant. Like him at their mercy. John isn’t allowed to have questions. He’s not allowed to _understand_. But Shiva looks like ( _feels_ like) she’s serious. He’s suddenly sure she’s breaking an unspoken rule, that’s she’s going to get herself in the shit for this, and he doesn’t know why she’s doing this. Doesn’t know what trap she’s setting for him.

 

“I don’t have anything to ask you,” he tells her.

 

“You’re lying,” she says.

 

“Fine. You want me to be honest? I don’t have any questions you’re actually going to answer,” snaps John. He’s trying hard to be quiet - doesn’t want to be overhead by any of the Pack. “Barsad doesn’t want me to know shit. _Bane_ doesn’t want me to know. You really think I’m going to believe you’ll risk your neck to help me out?”

 

“Are you concerned for my safety, John?” Shiva asks. She sounds amused. “You shouldn’t be.”

 

“No,” says John. “I just don’t trust you.”

 

The look Shiva gives him is assessing.

 

“You think my answers will have a price,” she says, after a short pause.

 

“Everything does,” says John.

 

Shiva laughs. “You’re learning,” she says. Her smile is sharp and fleeting and makes John tense up instinctively. Danger, danger.

 

“A story then,” she continues. “ _My_ story, freely given, no questions asked. So you don’t have to be afraid.” Her voice is mocking, but John isn’t going to call her on it. He’s going to keep his mouth shut for once.

 

Considering how tightly wound Shiva is, how easy it would be to make her snap - well. John isn’t _that_ stupid, okay.

 

“Human don’t like us,” she says. “They never have, and they never will. In some countries they kill us. In others they throw us into isolation and let the madness do the killing. But in the USA we’re civilised, John, and our government has research facilities that treat us - humanely.”

 

Her tone tells John exactly what she thinks of that _humane_ treatment. It’s hard to imagine what could possibly make a woman like her sound so - revolted. Afraid. A little shudder runs down his spine.

 

Humane. Right.

 

“My Pack was based in Michigan,” she continues. Voice cool now. Hard as glass. “My daughter was five years old when the humans collected us. They divided us into parts. They took her to one facility - me to another.” A pause. “It took me six years and the help of a - _doctor_ \- to escape. By then most of my Pack were dead and gone. There was nothing left for me. I decided to die.

 

“Then Bane found me.”

 

When John startles, lifts up onto his elbows, she shushes him. “Don’t speak. You have no questions for me, remember John?”

 

When it’s clear John isn’t going to interrupt, she continues in that same cool, brittle voice: “I was already half mad. A wolf’s sanity rests in their Pack, and my Pack was dead. I expected mercy from him, but instead he offered me a new Pack. A chance at sanity. An opportunity to build a new world for our kind. Of course I said yes.”

 

She leans in closer - too close for comfort. John doesn’t flinch though. He’s been through a hell of a lot worse. Shiva - she’s nothing compared with Bane. Nothing.

 

“So I’ve healed, John,” she said quietly; her breath a whisper against his ear. “More or less. Having a Pack has kept me sane. But we’re all damaged wolves, we’re all on the edge of a dark pit, and some of us - some of us have already fallen. Some of us have never climbed out.”

 

She takes hold of his hand. Her grip is tight, but not quite tight enough to leave a mark. The touch sends a jolt through him. It’s like - feedback. The static of her emotions. The rhythm of her heartbeat, syncing with his.

 

“When I touch you, it calms your heart. Settles your mind,” says Shiva, because she can feel it, she _knows_. She lifts his hand and presses it to her cheek. “When you touch me, it calms me in return. You can barely stand me John, but being Pack is enough. We need each other to stay whole.”

 

He looks up at her. She’s right. He can barely stand her. There’s no one - not a single goddamn wolf in this Pack that he really likes. But he can feel them all.

 

Knows them all. Needs them.

 

He stares into her eyes, refusing to flinch at the knowledge. To blink. When he looks at her he can’t see the woman she described, the one who lost her kid and her family and died inside for six goddamn years. All he can see is... Shiva. And she’s cold. Cold as they come. Hollowed out down right under the bones, where her heart should be.

 

She stares right back. Then she starts speaking again.

 

“You should know, John, that the strongest Pack bond is the one between a mated pair. Alpha and omega.” She drops his hand. “Imagine what a bond like that could _do_ for a broken mind. Imagine the damage it could fix.”

 

A mated pair. Alpha and omega.

 

_Bane._

 

He remembers Bane snarling at him, vicious, mindless. The inhuman madness in his eyes. He remembers wanting to reach out for Bane; trying to touch him. He remembers crawling over to Bane on instinct, thinking that if he just touched him it’d be okay, that his mate, that his Alpha needed him -

 

Bane is mad. Broken. His own Pack hasn’t been enough to fix him. And John is what - his cure? Is that why the wolves brought John here, to save Bane from himself?

 

The realisation numbs him. Wipes his emotions clean. He just can’t process it. He turns away from Shiva, not caring anymore if she thinks he’s weak. He squeezes his eyes shut tighter, tighter. The Pack are pulsing inside his head, bond to bond to bond. And he wants Bane. He wants Bane.

 

He’s in a cage of wants and needs. He’ll never be free of it. The Pack have dragged him into their pit with them, and there’s no getting out. Not now. Not for him.

 

“Why?” asks John, speaking into the bedding, voice tight and controlled. “Answer me, Shiva. Why have you told me this?”

 

“Because you need to fix him, John. You need to make him strong enough to build the new world he’s promised us. That new world...” Hesitation. When she continues her voice is glittering, exultant, settling in his ears like shards of glass.

 

“It’s worth any price, John. Any price.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geeky sidenote: the daughter Shiva mentions is [Cassandra Cain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_Cain), aka Batgirl 2.0, aka 'character not appearing in this fic'. 
> 
> Also, sorry for the delay with the chapter and the lack of Bane. Next chapter will hopefully make up for it!


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